


The Unintentional Seduction of Chiba Mamoru

by FloraOne



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: (I alternate POVs), Aged Up, Cunnilingus, Dry Humping, F/M, Fingering, Intimacy, Miscommunication, POV Chiba Mamoru, POV Tsukino Usagi, Pining, Sex Education, Shower Sex, Snogging, Teach Seduction, Teach Seduction trope, and no harmful gendered sex stereotypes, but like if first season went on, first season setting, love squared up, the OTP is very horny, this is completely self indulgent i just love the trope and want to give it a detox, ya know with some healthy sex positivity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:40:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 86,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21605440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloraOne/pseuds/FloraOne
Summary: Usagi is fed up with pining after Tuxedo Mask for 4 years now, and decides to take some unconventional actions. She's done with this shit, wants to live a little, and also maybe get some pointers. Meanwhile, Mamoru has been pining for Usagi even longer than that. Guess who she goes to ask for help?An utterly self indulgent classic "Teach Seduction" trope story with a clichee love square twist.
Relationships: Chiba Mamoru/Tsukino Usagi
Comments: 418
Kudos: 554





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo, here's that new multi-chapter I talked about on tumblr the last few days!
> 
> A few notes on the premise: So, you know, this is the kind of story you've read before in some (many) ways. I'm writing a very popular trope here - one of my personal favorites actually! However, even though it's my favorite, I have issues with a LOT of versions of it (even tho there are notable exceptions!). Anyway, the trope I'm going for here is the Teach Seduction trope - you know the one. Girl goes to boy desperate to get some pointers on how to seduce another guy and gets some lemony test-drives and they fall in love along the way. And yes - I tackled this trope before, in a way. In Would You Like To Buy An O? In my Lemon Tree series. This time, we're taking the classic approach to this story, and while I'm trying to stay as close to the classic premise as possible, I'm attempting to give it a bit (or a lot) of a detox. As always with my stories, no Mamoru the Knowledgeable Porn Star, no Usagi The Innocent Flower, no repressing notions on sexuality. At least, I tried very very hard; you'll be the judge on whether I succeeded! Anyway, my twist again, and I hope you enjoy it. As it is, though, this story is M all the way. This is a very sexy trope after all.
> 
> I've been wanting to write this for a while, and now I'm finally doing it - and a lot of that is thanks to all those encouraging people on tumblr - you know why!
> 
> Oh, and - This is all love-squared up (like, exactly in the way I did it in my fic 'Idiots').

* * *

The Unintentional Seduction Of Chiba Mamoru  
Chapter 1: Prologue

* * *

Chiba Mamoru was probably the very worst person for this job that Usagi could have asked.

He knew he was a good teacher. Throughout high school and now medical school he'd tutored a lot of students in lower grades, helped out here and there. He was good at explaining, good at demonstrating, good at working himself into a problem in a way that made the solution not only work but also put it into terms that were easy to understand and follow.

But as fate (read: Tsukino Usagi) would have it, Mamoru had been tasked with teaching the woman he'd been top hat over heels in love with ever since he was 17 to seduce another man.

Mamoru would never have thought he'd be in a position to teach anything in the realms of sexuality to anyone. Ever. Definitely not someone as confident and at home in her skin and as wonderfully, imperfectly perfect Usagi-fucking-Tsukino. And he certainly would never have thought that it would freak him out the way it did if he ever came into a position where intimacy with Tsukino Usagi would even slightly be in the cards for him.

It freaked him out. It freaked him out freakishly hard.

How did this even happen?

If he really had to pinpoint a start, it was earlier this year, in summer, when he ran into her at Juuban Matsuri in her cute pink-and-bunnies Yukata that made his eyes tear in a level of adorableness he simply couldn't bear, and then simply… stuck with her for a little while.

She'd been so late her friends had already left; she'd been browsing on her own, and for once, seemed to not mind his company.

He hadn't even planned to actually spend time at that festival. He'd had to get to class, was just taking a look. But it wasn't the first time he'd skipped class to stay in her vicinity for a little while longer.

They'd stood in line for what she claimed was the best soft serve ice cream at the festival, bantering and rolling their eyes and doing his stupid-people version of flirting that Usagi never seemed to understand the way it was intended, and when she'd wolfed hers down in record speed, he simply didn't agree.

She threw him a look, and he licked at his melting ice cream once more, very half-heartedly.

Her eyes turned into an accusing glare and he simply shrugged. "It's… really not that good."

And then she grabbed his wrist, yanked it down, ice-cream cone and all, and _licked at it._

His eyes widened, and his reaction probably wouldn't have been this intense if the touch of her frankly _tiny_ fingers so daintily wrapped around his wrist hadn't thrown him for such a loop. "ODANGO," he'd hollered. "That was mine!"

She threw him a pointed look. "You held it out like that! And it's MELTING! You're clearly not enjoying it!"

"Just because it's there doesn't mean you get to steal my food."

And at that, she'd fluttered that disarming, small smile at him. The one that played around her lips, the one that made her eyes shine in such enticing challenge. God, he was so absolutely _gone_ for this girl, it wasn't even funny. "Clearly, you do not understand how this brain of mine operates," she threw at him.

Oh, such an _easy_ prompt...

He smirked, leaned a little down towards her. "Oh, so there IS a brain in there."

She rolled her eyes so prettily. And as if to spite him, to punish him for his jerkery, she poked her pretty tongue out and licked his ice cream again.

This time, he held it out towards her a little, licking his lips.

"Besides, I get to lick anything I want, baka." She threw him a wink, her lips glistening with the milky treat he was still holding on to.

He raised both eyebrows. "Oh, do you now?"

He was almost embarrassed over how breathy his voice had suddenly turned.

She eyed his melting ice cream in the most adorable, utmost concern. "Now give me that, you don't deserve it," she stated.

He chuckled. "And what do we say for that?"

She glared at him. "You don't even want it."

"So?"

Who was he kidding, of course he'd hand it over. But he so loved to see her glare.

"You're just gonna make me beg for it," she glowered up at him.

The smirk stretched back across his lips. He couldn't even help it. There was nothing he could do about it.

"Oh, sweet Usagi," he purred, leaning down and glinting at her with all the theatrics he had in him. And it was a lot. He was Tuxedo Mask after all. "I _always_ want you to beg for it. It's _so_ much better when you beg."

Just that this time… this time she hadn't danced this dance they'd been dancing for five _agonizing years_ right back. She hadn't rolled her eyes and slapped his arm, she hadn't shrieked at him. Instead… instead she'd blushed, and she'd looked up at him wide-eyed, almost on her tiptoes… and for a second there… For a second there his traitorous heart had thought she was leaning _in_ , and like a fool he leaned in _back_ and…

And then nothing had happened.

But, if he had to pick an incident that had jumpstarted this agonized state of pure horrifying torture for him, he was pretty sure that had been it.

Did she… did she _finally_ return his feelings? At least _somewhat_? Was something… finally _happening_ here?

But when he saw her next, and she'd been _nervous_ – Usagi Tsukino, _NERVOUS_! - he'd clamped up. Reacted aloof and hostile and wanted to smack himself real fucking bad.

The atmosphere had changed. When he ran into her from that day on she… had she always _blushed_ when they'd collided like that?

It threw him for a very torturing, over-analyzing loop.

By the time she finally got the words out he'd been an absolute nervous wreck. The day before she finally approached him had been the pinnacle of agony for him.

She'd been weird for days beforehand. Weeks, almost! But that day? At Crown?

It had been the sixth time she'd glanced his way that day - turned or gotten up and then shrunk in on herself before she lost her nerve for whatever it was that she was trying to get her nerve up. (Yes, of course he's been counting. Of course.)

His heart had been beating so hard, so nervously, that he could barely form any kind of coherent, non-freaked out thought.

What was it? What had her so nervous? What was she trying to _ask_ …?

 _Ask me out. She's trying to ask me out_ – his traitorous heart had been whispering very unwantedly wantedly for _days_ now.

It would be what would get _him_ to be as nervous as she currently was, at least.

He shook his head. There could be a million reasons for the ways she was acting. Maybe he'd…

At the seventh time of this nervous dance of hers, he was ready to scream. This was Usagi, always ready to yell at him at the top of her lungs at a moment's notice, and he'd apparently _done_ something that left her rendered mute and unsure how to... How to _what_?

At this seventh time, he found her wide-eyed and seemingly frozen mute in front of his stool, and he stared unseeing at his textbook so he wouldn't have to look – the same textbook he'd had propped open for nearly an hour now, as he waited out her nervousness, and yet, he had no clue what the hell was on this page, and had never turned a single one today.

And she just _stood_ there now.

He was surprised he'd had the guts to speak. And that his words sounded so calm. Since, well, he could barely _hear_ them over the beating of his heart.

He was 22 for god's sake. This shouldn't be so difficult.

"... I don't bite, Usako," he told his textbook.

And his voice didn't even waver. Not even over the 'Usako'; the most precious, most rare, most daring of the nicknames he tended to use for her.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her blush, saw her lips pop open and press together. And what she said made his eyes whip up in shock and his heart give out because…

"What if I wanted a bite?" she breathed.

He choked.

A beat, and then she shapeshifted into a tomato. It knocked him all right out.

She ducked. "N-nevermind..." she mumbled.

And then she ran. A blur of short baby blue jumpsuit he'd seen her wear for years and glorious golden hair. Before he managed to even get a semblance of control back over his face, the Crown's automatic doors had swallowed her, and she was gone.

What… _What_?!

He hadn't slept that night. He couldn't.

And so, the next day when his feet had carried him to the Fruit Parlor after classes like a love-sick fool because he simply couldn't keep away, he found her with steeled shoulders, red ears, and the most determined expression he'd ever seen on her in all the years.

" _I want to ask you for a favor_ ," she'd finally said.

A _favor_. She'd called _that_ a favor. _A favor_?!

It had been his turn to run off.

Not far, mind you. Motoki was probably ready to smack him. But he was sleep-deprived and he was faced with the most tempting offer in all his life and he felt that in his _teeth_ and it was just so despicably _wrong_.

He just… he wouldn't do it. There was no way it was appropriate or right to agree. None. At all.

"I'm not gonna do it," he babbled again.

"Of course, you're not," Motoki said, voice absolutely bored of his nonsense, counting the cash in his work wallet as he was cashing in for the day and jotting down numbers on a notepad on the stool beside him.

"Of course, I'm not," he said with a decisive nod. "It's completely inappropriate."

A slow, silent nod from beside him.

"And completely weird," Mamoru added, clutching his seventh coffee for the day.

"And besides, I'm the worst person she could ask," he went on.

"Obviously," Motoki agreed. "You can't flirt if your life depended on it."

At that, Mamoru turned to glower at his friend in irritation, but gave up fairly quickly with a defeated sigh, his hands moving back into his desperately mangled hair. "And I'm completely inexperienced whatever she seems to think otherwise of it. What am I even…"

Motoki shrugged.

"I'm not gonna do it."

Another nod from Motoki, numbers on a page.

"It's wrong. Completely atrocious. _And_ I'd be taking advantage of her."

Motoki flinched somewhat indecisively. "Well, to be fair," he started carefully, not looking up from his notepad, "it seems more like SHE'D be taking advantage of YOU."

He threw Motoki a look and a scoff. "I'm in love with her."

Motoki pressed his mouth together and blew up his eyes for just a second in irritation. "Yes. I'm very aware."

"It's wrong. I'm not gonna do it. This isn't something anybody should be doing for anyone and I'm not gonna do it with her. FOR her. Whatever."

Slow nod.

"I'm not gonna do it."

Motoki shrugged. "She'll just have to ask someone else to help her, then."

Mamoru's face whipped to Motoki's in pure, indulted horror.

* * *

It was well past 10 when Usagi's phone chimed, and she nearly dropped it, her heart was pounding so hard.

Because what the _hell_ had she been thinking listening to _Minako_ , there was no _way_ he'd agree to such an out _rageous_ —

Mamoru-Baka, 10:32 pm.  
ok.

Her heart fucking stopped. _What_?!

Had he just… had he just _agreed_?!

Her fingers trembled, and before she was able to compose an answer, writing and deleting text over and over, he'd written again.

Mamoru-Baka, 10:34 pm.  
But there need to be rules.

This time she texted back immediately, deleting what she'd previously written and instead replacing it with a simple,'of course!' that she immediately sent.

Mamoru-Baka, 10:34 pm.  
I mean it.

* * *

Usagi, 10: 35 pm.  
Of course! Whatever you want! Thank you! I'll be at your place in an hour!

Mamoru nearly fell off his bed at that.

WAIT, WHAT?! _NOW_?!

Oh for the love of fucking _god_ what the hell had he—

* * *

_Take this first chapter as more of a prologue for things to come ;) And please let me know what you think of this! Reviews are love, and they keep me motivated to write!_

_My heart full of thanks to my beta Uglygreenjacket, who sticks with me through every last nonsense! MWAH!_


	2. Decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here you go! I'm glad many of you seem to be on board with me and my 200th cake here, haha! Anyway, as I said, this topic, imo, deserves the utmost care and I am giving it my best shot! Thank you guys for being along with the ride and especially since it's such a delicate balance, I appreciated your comments SO much and hope you like what's to come!
> 
> Also I live in dramatic and giant mostest gratitudedness to my beta who handles my throwing giant word-monsters at her. You have the busiest beta-job around, Uglygreenjacket, and it's all my fault and THANK YOU FOR STICKING WITH ME even when I make your life harder than it needs to be, girl.
> 
> So here you go, HAVE FUN PLEASE!

* * *

The Unintentional Seduction Of Chiba Mamoru  
Chapter 2: Decision

* * *

" _Fuuuuck_ ," Usagi keened, a long shuddering, trembling wail as she pressed wildly back against Tuxedo Mask's hand beneath the short skirt of her fuku, the cold pads of his fingers slipping against her wet, wet clit, the delicious weight of his body against hers. She ripped her eyes wide open to see the smirk on his lips with a pounding heart – so near to hers as he watched her every reaction to his fingers on her skin, close and attentive and following her with his eyes, breathless and cocky and as needy as she was, dripping and shaking and wanting.

His eyes were the worst. That smile that haunted her, the way his hair fell into it across the cursed mask.

"Hmmmm," he hummed, smiling that slow, knowing and sexy half-smile at her slack, open lips, not touching but hovering – against her lips, her jaw, her throat – but so close she felt the sound of it vibrating against her. The drag of his undone white shirt against her destroyed fuku. The cold metal of the trinkets on his outfit and the wide, cold shank buttons fastening his cape to the jacket, the way it caught her heated skin, her puckered nipples and caused her to fall apart with want and arousal and that desperate ache in her heart that came with knowing that none of this was real.

Here, where only ever anything she wanted was happening because she was the silent director of every scene, he could do anything to her. Here, where the concrete of the roof felt like down-feathers at her back, where every suave safe by Tuxedo Mask in the middle of mortal peril, every time he whisked her out of danger or took a youma's blast for her, would end with her quivering thighs locked around his face or his cock in her wanting mouth or plunging deep, deep into her waiting, desperately sopping cunt in these dreams.

Here, where his white gloves suddenly disappeared as if they never existed when he dragged those long, elegant, skilled fingers along her soaking slit, where he could read her mind and touch and fuck her just the way she wanted, he could do nothing wrong.

Here where he could take her and fuck her and she could get everything she ever wanted as she came apart on his cock, night after night after torturous night.

He shifted above her, his finger circling her waiting entrance slowly but insistently in slow, agonizing torture but never plunging in, gave her another slow smirk when she cried out against his mouth and it made her blood flush in a way that made her almost dizzy because he looked so, so…

She clawed at him, bucked up at him, just so he'd finally, finally fuck her with that hand, or that cock, better yet, but not tease her in this delicious, dizzying way and just…

But his fingers circled, circled, his thumb at her clit and his fingers never going _in_ and—

"Don't make me beg," she cried frantically at his lips, clutching at the tuxedo jacket harshly.

That _smirk_ and then—

"Oh, but it's _so_ much better when you to beg for it, Usako."

And then he's Mamoru. Then his hair falls into _Mamoru's_ glinting, cocky eyes, his smirk is stretched across _Mamoru's_ lips and it's almost enough to make her come alone. And she's suddenly in Mamoru's bed and it's not his fingers that he's thrusting into her but it's his cock and she sighs in relief so deep it feels like falling as she comes—

Maybe it was the orgasm that woke her up. Maybe it was the stupid, obnoxious blaring of her alarm. Either way, her eyes flipped open and she groaned pitifully, pushing her bangs back against her scalp as she glared at the morning sun filtering through her wide-open window which she did not remember opening.

Luna must have fled her bedroom again.

She needed a minute. Or ten.

By the time she finally emerged from her bedroom, frustrated and reluctantly, into their pretty and _messy_ joint kitchen, Minako was already sitting at their tiny fold-away table, munching on Usagi's chemically colorful unicorn themed cereal and watching her amusedly.

Usagi sighed, got a bowl and spoon from the drying rack beside their tiny sink, fell into the chair across from Minako, and poured disturbingly glittery food unicorns from a box.

"We need thicker walls," Minako commented, dry but grinning.

Usagi felt all the blood in her body immediately relocate into her face.

She decided to remain mute, but wouldn't ever make eye-contact with Minako again, she'd decided, and poured milk into her bowl that instantly turned pink.

"You had a sex dream about Chiba again, didn't you?"

Why could Minako never let this go?

She ducked, eyeing her spoon studiously. "... not … _exactly_ ," she mumbled. "It was _totally_ about Tuxedo Mask."

Minako rolled her eyes, but her elbows were on the table, absolutely leaned across. Because this was her tea, and Minako always wanted her tea, however much it embarrassed Usagi. "BOTH then," Minako said, with a gesture that said, 'all the same'.

It was _not_ the same. It shouldn't be. She didn't know why her stupid dreams insisted to merge the two… it was _wrong_.

She stabbed her cereal with a big fat guilty pout.

"Stop beating yourself up," Minako said. "You're allowed to be attracted to more than one person, you know?"

Usagi sent a glare her way. "I'm in LOVE with Tuxedo Mask, though."

Minako threw her a very annoyed 'duh' kinda look. "Oh, I'm _well aware."_

Usagi rolled her eyes, and stabbed her cereal some more, before taking a huffy bite. Sugary taste, strawberry milk. It might kill her slowly, but it was deliciously worth it.

And she needed the comfort.

She huffed, even when Minako got up, put her own bowl in the sink with the other dirty dishes, and came back to wipe away the milk she'd spilled with the tea towel that hang from a hook next to the sink – the one with lots and lots of red kissy lips on white cotton, and it felt a little mocking to Usagi.

"It feels like I'm cheating on him," she admitted quietly around a mouthful.

Minako slapped the towel on the table like a whip, all menacing Sailor Venus, and sent her a deep, deep glare that immediately caused Usagi to recoil.

"Ok first," Minako hissed, agitated, index finger high and accusing in the air, "in order to be cheating on anyone, you gotta be in a relationship with them."

Usagi huffed and grumbled, but Minako talked right over her, hand now stemmed against her hip, joining her raised finger in the 'you listen to me now, girly' stance.

"And second, your sexual fantasies are just that! Fantasies! Free, free fantasies!" Minako scolded her. "You don't exactly _decide_ what gets you going!"

Usagi's shoulders fell, even when the kissy towel was smacked back on Minako's shoulder. "Even IF you were in a relationship, sexual fantasies are ok. Besides, it's not like you're actually two-timing anyone. And," she trailed off with a look, and gestured down at herself with a 'been there done that, does it make me what you're calling yourself?' expression.

Usagi sighed. "It feels wrong," she pouted into strawberry milk.

Minako looked at her, face morphing into sympathy, and she sank back down in her seat, elbows back on the fold-away table.

"Look," she started. "The way I see it, you're emotionally locking yourself away and putting rules on yourself that aren't exactly fair on yourself, Usagi. And for what?"

She shrugged sadly. "Hoping he'll see me one day and I'll be available then."

Minako nodded slowly with a sigh.

Usagi slurped the rest of her strawberry milk, and poured herself a second bowl. Minako just sat and watched and waited for her to gather her thoughts as she sometimes did.

"I think…" Usagi started, swirling her spoon back into the cereal to turn the mixture pink again. "I think I need pointers. How to flirt better. Clearly I'm doing it wrong."

Minako threw her a look bordering on irritated.

"I don't know what to do," Usagi confessed with a deep sigh. "I think I'm ready to give up?" she said with a flinch.

Minako shook her head with a stern expression. "I don't think you need pointers."

Usagi pressed her mouth together, blew up her cheeks and huffed. "Oh, I _really_ do…"

Minako just shook her head even harder. Frustrated, exasperated.

But she didn't repeat the sentiment, instead she said something different, smacking the kissy towel back on the table. "Ok so, maybe try something different."

Usagi threw her a wary look.

"You're not ready to give him up, clearly."

Usagi huffed.

"However you say you are, you're clearly not," Minako said, "even if I wish you were."

 _Ugh_.

"You know I'm right."

The pout on Usagi's face just fell into record depths. But nevertheless she admitted a small, "Yeah you're right."

"But you're clearly fed up," Minako nodded.

"I am."

"You WANT to be ready to give him up," she continued.

It was probably telling that her mind directly sounded in alarm, backtracking. "Or… you know, get _pointers_ ," she said warily.

Minako rolled her eyes. "Or get pointers."

And then Minako shifted in her seat, clearly trying to frame something… delicately, and Usagi's hackles rose up even more in alarm.

"So… Usagi. What if you set your eyes on something with less… heartache? Go on a few dates, completely casual?"

Everything in Usagi started to protest, and something different in her started to—

 _Uh_ …

"Or even just… start something completely, completely no strings attached. Have a little fun?"

Usagi blinked at her, wide-eyed and shocked and something in her… something in her wanted to _agree_. Wanted to agree very, very badly.

"I mean... you could always get a little practice in..." Minako suggested carefully.

Usagi frowned. "What do you mean?" she croaked.

"You've been hung up on the guy for almost _four years_ , Usagi," Minako pointed out very, very needlessly, and Usagi pressed her lips back together in irritation.

"Exactly what I've been saying," she grumbled.

"Well _I'm_ saying," Minako argued, "you don't owe him anything."

Usagi gaped at her and Minako rolled her eyes and her shoulders back in the same movement.

"Look," she said, gesticulating with her hand and the kissy towel, "so, you're unhappy and about willing to give up on the guy, yeah?"

"Yes..."

"How about just relaxing a little. Have some fun. Date. You've never done that. I say, try it. Casually. Nothing serious. Scratch an itch or two. Get a little "practice" if you know what I mean." Minako said, watching her carefully. "Maaaybe even with someone you're clearly getting off to anyway."

And there it was again, the super blush.

Minako immediately held up her hands. "Or you know, anyone you choose!"

Usagi swallowed hard. It made sense. Why did it make so much sense… Why did it suddenly sound so… so…

Tempting.

Minako rolled her shoulders back forward, shrugged with her elbows back on the table. "And maybe," she began, "maybe on the way you fall in love and don't have to worry and be unhappy anymore and at the SAME time you don't have to despair over the fact you gave him up because really you don't have to."

Usagi exhaled slowly.

"If you casually have a date here and there, it doesn't mean you can't still fall into his arms if he ever DOES return your feelings..."

She swallowed once more, wide-eyed now.

Tempting, tempting, tempting.

That… that would be ok… right?

And she could feel it blooming in her chest, that uncoiling knot of… of relief. And hope. Because yes, maybe, maybe that _could_ work…

"... Minako, you're a genius," she whispered, almost involuntarily.

Minako smirked, threw her a triumphant wink, and then she shrugged.

"Just... don't be reckless ok? Take care of yourself. And your heart," she added on, and her smile fell a little before she threw Usagi another pointed look. "I worry."

"I know…"

But that seemed everything Minako wanted to hear, and she threw the kissy towel across the kitchen where it did not land in the sink, and turned back to her with a glinting grin.

"So, did you dream of sucking him off at Crown again?"

 _UGH_.

Usagi sunk against the table, groaning loudly.

"C'mon!"

She was all the shame, all the blush, and mumbled into the table. "No. No, not this time," she croaked against the wood.

* * *

Later that same day, Usagi decided Minako was right. This was kind of her last resort out of this unrequited love, wasn't it? If her heart was so tired that she was ready to give up, then why not start something truly casual. That way either it helped her fall out of love or it helped her find new ways to pursue him. Meanwhile, something casual wouldn't pressure herself to give up on Tuxedo Mask at all.

This was… a good idea, right?

Except she needed to be careful. The last thing she wanted was to hurt anybody in the way that she was hurting, after all. So, she needed someone who she could be… open with. Someone safe.

And who was she even kidding. Even before this pep-talk her brain put on repeat since that morning, Usagi knew who she… would want to… do that with.

She really hoped her brain wasn't erasing all evidence that this was a stupid decision. Because really, she couldn't think of a single reason it might be.

Except, ya know, the possibility he might laugh in her face and she might embarrass herself for all time to come.

She sighed.

* * *

It took her a couple of tries to get the courage.

There he sat. All pretty and sexy and exasperating.

It was unnerving.

And really, really kind of unfair, too.

Now... _she_ had the excuse of superhero-ing almost daily for the past 5 years. What _he_ did in his spare time to chisel and define that outstandingly and _absurdly_ attractive physique of his, those _abs_ that would flash her straight into mute, senseless immobility whenever he _reached_ for things...

He had no excuse. No excuse at all why he would look like that. It left her frustrated. And while she would never even contemplate to ask a friend to scratch that particular itch for her, and was nothing she would ever consider, because, well that could really compromise a friendship… Mamoru (and her dreams about him) already proved he really wasn't that kind of friend, was he?

Even before her brain started merging him with the guy she was in love with, she supposed the sexual tension between them had always been there. There's always been those startling moments where she found herself watching him and those abs and imagining herself and her tongue running down them and along the seam of those briefs that he accidently flashed her with sometimes when he moved around. That seam when his black jeans had ridden down _just_ that inch lower and showed that little line of hair that ran from his navel and down to… and that doused her in this strictly UNFAIR amount of want so much more frequently than she was ever willing to admit.

He was exasperating. Infuriating. Frustrating. A total jerk most of the time. But god _dammit_ was he hot.

She frequently denied herself to realize exactly how often he featured in her fantasies. Sure, _most_ of them were battle frenzied escapades with Tuxedo Mask underneath the moonlight, driven by adrenaline and already sweaty and exhausted bodies. Scenes where he'd play her body like a song, whispered his undying love in her ear as he fucked her senseless… But Tuxedo Mask had this flair of romance that in her dreams would often make him end up dipping soft and silky rosebuds into her navel in her mind, and just along the soft and sensitive skin underneath the swell of her breasts and... That was nice. Those were very, very nice, very familiar fantasies, like good, old trusted friends. She'd had those dreams ever since she'd had sex dreams period.

But she was 19 now. And sexually frustrated. Very, very impatiently sexually frustrated. And Tuxedo Mask had never even really looked at her once she'd found herself finally actually really, _really_ interested. He'd never kissed her after that one single time that jump-started all that heartache for her, never hummed against her lips, definitely never dipped rosebuds into her navel and swirled them around her nipples. For years of dreaming about it, it had never happened. And there was the very pressing possibility that he probably never would.

And, adding to that, sexually frustrated as she was, dreaming about rosebuds didn't really cut the chase for her these days, _some_ of the time.

But Mamoru? Mamoru- _baka_? Mamoru-baka and that fucking smirk, that arrogant attitude? Oh, how it destroyed her, sometimes. How it made her imagine his hand roughly digging into the cheeks of her ass as he pushed in from behind, slick and fast and deliciously hard, the other tacking her wrists to her bed as he wrecked her and she tried so desperately not to scream so loud as to wake anyone so unfortunate to be one tiny bedroom wall away, first her brother, then Minako.

So... if she considered complicating ANY friendship to get a little... practice in... It WOULD be this one, right? The one that _already_ swam in a tainted, frustrating, sea of attraction.

He was the right choice. And he sat there. Day after day she ran into him. Crown, Fruit Parlor, random streets of Juuban. He was there.

She just needed to… find the right words to convince him.

She was relatively cute, wasn't she? Surely he wouldn't… totally object. Surely he would be at least so shocked to hear her out, right?

If only she found the right words.

Then she might get to… finally know what those lips, pulled into that firm, gleaming smirk on that distractingly, stupidly beautiful man would taste _like_. Try out for herself what it would take to make him come undone until he was a whimpering, spazzing mess beneath her unable to even form words much less those arrogant lines of his.

It took her a little to find those words. A full week of tensing up before she finally steeled herself enough, one afternoon in a booth at the Fruit Parlor, digging her fingers into the yellow seats and finally getting the words out.

"I… I want to ask you for a favor," she pressed out.

He looked at her, brows drawn together. Wanting her to continue, but she didn't.

"What is it?" he finally asked, when the silence had stretched too long.

This really… wasn't the easiest to say. _Just invite him for a coffee_ , Minako had said. _Ask him if he wanted to take this elsewhere._

But she really couldn't do that.

"Ok so…" she croaked and trailed off.

His eyebrows lifted in confusion, his fingers tensing around the coffee cup, as if her nervousness was contagious.

She pressed her eyes shut, scrunched up her face, and started to ramble.

Stupid decision.

"You're a guy," she started, and frowned, and grew wide-eyed. "I mean, you're male. Technically."

Oh, bloody damn.

He threw her a look. "Yes, Usagi," he said dryly. "I am male. Thank you for noticing."

She refrained from following the urge to hit her head against the table between them. "Ugh this is coming out all wrong," she groaned.

But this time he remained patient, just watched her in that stoic, infuriating, unreadable way.

She grit her teeth in frustration, curled her fingers tighter into the yellow seats, tried _so_ hard not to blush. So, so, so hard. "Well," she croaked, "you remember how like… all these years and like, through all these terrible exams when I was like, still in school, you were offering to… um, to tutor me?"

He furrowed his brow and complete confusion. "… yes?"

Her hands flew to her face and she groaned into them. "Ugh, no this sounds so WRONG."

"Odango," he almost scolded. "Spit it out already."

She knew the battle with her blush was one she was spectacularly loosing, but she tried to exhale slowly, calm herself down.

Ok. Okokokokok.

"So, all cards on the table," she breathed out in one long, rushed breath.

" _Please_."

She pressed her lips together again, then popped them, and ripped one of many bandaids off.

"There's this guy I like," she shot out.

And watched him tense, his eyes freeze. Watched him go completely rigid.

"…oh," he said eventually.

She swallowed. "I've liked him for a while now."

"Oh."

He was leaning back, completely… closed off, and this was… Shit. This… wasn't going the way she'd thought it would. She thought he'd be more… sympathetic? At least… interested? Curious? But this complete lack of… of _anything_ , made her even more nervous.

Her throat was dry, completely dry, and it affected her voice. But she had started this and she'd… She'd at least see it through.

"And I… I've recently realized that it's probably not going anywhere," she said, even more unsure than before.

His brow twitched. "…ok?"

"It's definitely not going anywhere if I'm not…changing things," she said slowly, fingers twitching nervously. She was sure her eyes were doing all sorts of unfortunate things.

He blinked. "…what?"

Her sigh trembled a little and she stumbled over her voice. "But anyway," she managed. "I'm only saying this to be like, completely honest with you about what... about what I'm about to ask…"

He swallowed too. Visibly. Audibly. "Ok…"

She balled her hands up into fists and pressed them into her lap. "So. I've been waiting for this guy to notice me. And he never ever has."

He huffed in that absolutely weird way. "He sounds very stupid," he remarked.

She frowned at him. What?!

But he shook his head quickly, and gesticulated with his hand. "Go on," he said.

Her heart was beating right out of her chest. How was this so… fucking hard?! She just… this was right, wasn't it? This was the fair thing to do. If she was asking… asking _this_ , then he ought to know what was going on in her heart, right?!

She nodded to herself. He sat completely still. Watched her… weirdly intensely, and she felt it on her skin, and she had to clear her throat around the nervous lump, just a little.

"Anyway, I'm… sitting here, and I _do_ want to experience things. I don't WANT to wait around for him, even when I know whatever I do I kinda am…"

His eyes narrowed. "Usagi. What are you saying?"

Her heart thumped so hard, her throat was _so_ fucking dry…

"I want to… I want to live a little and… ugh."

Thump-thump, thump-thump, and god _dammit_ —

And well, yeah, she was making this hard to follow, she was well aware. Stupid fucking—

Couldn't she just… tell the guy?

Hey, wanna fuck sometimes? No strings attached? I'd kinda like to?

Ugh.

"Ok, listen. I'm attracted to you, ok?"

He fell back against the yellow seats, wide-eyed, as if she'd shot him.

"…oh."

And… and… for some weird reason, suddenly, he seemed to open back up?

"But like. If this with the other guy wasn't… but I…" she broke off. He was leaning towards her now, _watching_. Watching her trembling hands, her stuttering mouth, her fidgeting. "It's stupid right? And it shouldn't hold me back. And I thought… maybe, if I fuck it all, and like, DO things. Normal things. Non pining things, maybe I get over him."

He nodded slowly, a little confused, but trying to follow.

"But like, I know that my stupid brain is gonna be stupid and unfair and whatever I learn, I will probably want to use on him. Learn how to like… seduce him better. Even though that's like… not exactly my plan, but ya know, maybe it is, and I'm just deluding myself."

His eyes were blowing wide now. "…what are you saying here?"

But she rambled right over him. "Because like… I KNOW I would. If I learn things here that I really want to learn, I know I will probably try to do that, and I think it's unfair if I … ask this of you, and don't tell you where my brain is at with him and…"

Choked sounds, a hand in his hair. "Usagi. Stop."

"…and I—"

She stopped mid-sentence, wide-eyed.

"Usagi," he implored, eyes intense on here, hands firmly gripping his coffee cup. "What exactly ARE YOU ASKING?"

Her heart was somewhere underneath the table, and it was suddenly very hard to talk.

"I'm asking you for experience," she mumbled.

"What?"

He looked… He looked pale.

"I'm… I'm attracted to you. I'm an adult asking you for… for something casual. Without like, strings…"

He was mute for a second, watching her.

It was slow, painful torture, his stare.

And then a scandalized, barely contained, " _What_?!"

Fuck.

She backtracked. Tried to explain. "I… there's a few boys I know who are like, into me."

He opened his mouth, closed it, still stared at her so, so… dumbstruck.

She swallowed and ran with it. "But… for one, I'm not attracted to THEM, and two, I wouldn't knowingly want to like, endanger their heart."

He blinked, lifted his cup with those unfairly distractingly nice hands, took a sip from his coffee, a deep one, and she saw with a stab to her chest that his hands were… were they trembling too?!

And so she ran some more.

"But like, with you I know that… I know you're NOT like, into me," she said, quickly and nervously.

His cup _rattled_ as he put it back on his saucer.

"We have this spark, and like, I THINK you're a little bit attracted to me too but it's not… not like…"

And then he interrupted her, and she supposed she probably had never been as flushed before in her life.

"Usagi… are you.. are you asking me for sex?"

She fell over her words. "Experience. I want to… learn from you. I'm asking you for… ex- experience"

"You mean sexual experience."

She inhaled. "I do."

And as if someone hit a pause button, they both suddenly grew silent, watching each other, and his eyes slowly hardened.

"Are you… Is this some sort of prank?" he asked darkly. His whole beautiful form taking on this almost… thrilling, menacing presence.

She shook her head wildly, her hair moving across the yellow seats. "It's really not."

His eyes were back to that wide, blown up, confused and intense stare. As if he wasn't blinking.

"So you want to… do what exactly…? With me?"

And then they both almost violently jumped, because a waitress that, for once, _thankfully_ wasn't Unazuki finally arrived with her cream soda, but… but…

He leaned back against the seats, his eyes following her every move, waiting for her to speak while she nervously fumbled with her straw and took a sip of the lime green drink, and emptied a little with a slurp through the plastic, and still he watched her.

"He might never see me," Usagi told her soda once she had the courage to go on. Still he just watched. "I don't want to sit around not living my life if he doesn't."

He licked his lips, leaned back forward. "But you also want to… what, learn to seduce him? From ME?"

He looked… Torn. Confused. Shocked. Beautiful and _thrown_ and…

She frowned, wrapped her hands around her glass. "I don't… want that, necessarily. But I know it's what my mind will probably… try. That's why I'm… you know, admitting this to you."

"Who IS this douche?" he fired.

She found his eyes again, and they were the most intense and most _attractive_ shade of blue she'd ever seen in them.

"…I'd rather not say," she said with a cringe.

He slumped back against the back of his seat. Watching her with that absolutely intense and so, so unreadable eyes.

This was a stupid idea. Worst idea ever. What had she thought would happen? He'd _never_ let her live this down, he—

"Why me?" he asked, except it was intoned more like an order.

She blinked unsurely. What?

"Why ask me?" he asked again. "Out of all the guys you could have asked. Why me?"

She exhaled harshly, hid behind her cream soda. "This is gonna sound totally bad."

He threw her a look, his hair falling into his face. "Believe me, it's already sounding totally bad…"

She cringed.

"Go on," he ordered.

"You're… you remind me of him."

It was as if she'd turned a switch in him, everything slumping.

"…oh," he breathed out shakily.

It wasn't long before he fled. Simply… got up and just _went away_ and—

She groaned into her elbows, slumped over the table.

Who had she been kidding? He was never gonna say yes. This was a complete, embarrassing disaster.

And then… and then, that night, he just… agreed. Just like that.

Wow.

 _Wow_. What the fuck.

* * *

Usagi, 10:35 pm.  
Of course! Whatever you want! Thank you! I'll be at your place in an hour!

The second she'd written that, her whole body exploded in nerves and … excitement. It bubbled from her and wouldn't be contained, and she felt like screaming because it was Minako's long night working at the bar, and the cats were out doing god knows what and she needed someone to _scream at in panic_ but there was no one home to bring her down.

But she jumped into action, did the full program. 39 minutes later she'd rubbed product into her hair, brushed her teeth, showered, shaved like a person on a mission. Stood in front of the mirror glaring at her bush with a raised razor for a full minute, trying to decide whether to shave for him or not, and ended up going for a little trim on the sides. She dabbed Minako's expensive perfume between her breast and tried on four different sets of underwear before finally settling on a simple black cotton ensemble that _looked_ very nice on her skin but not like she was like, _trying_ too hard, only to then dismiss everything out of her wardrobe before ending up in front of Minako's massive closet in a panic.

Usagi, 11:16pm.  
Can I borrow your black dress? The one with the halter neck and the straps in the back?

She set her phone aside, the garment already in her hands, surely Minako would agree.

Mina-P, 11:17pm  
Sure. What do you need it for?

Usagi nodded, but her phone chimed directly once more.

Mina-P, 11:17pm  
WAIT, for a date?! Did Chiba say yes?  
DON'T WEAR THAT DRESS! You don't want to look like me! Wear one of your mini skirts and a top!

Usagi's heart went back to pounding. Yet, she listened despite herself, and deposited the dress back in Minako's closet, before stumbling back into her own room frustratedly.

She knew Mina-P was right. She should look like herself but… He _knew_ all these clothes and...

Mina-P, 11:18pm  
Don't overthink this! You got this!

She swallowed and rolled her shoulders back and nodded, and grabbed a black mini skirt that was soft from wearing it a lot and her magenta top that fell over her boobs quite nicely and yes. Yes this… this might do.

The pinkish lipstick was an afterthought and she regretted it almost the second she'd applied it but…

She found herself stumbling out of her door in her black Mary-Jane flats and her heart in her gums and, and… and she was going to have sex for the first time in like… 12 minutes.

With… With _Mamoru_.

It was making her skin prickle in thrilling, thrilling excitement. She was so fucking _ready_ …

The absurdity of the whole situation came back to her when she stood, fist raised but paralyzed, in front of Mamoru's green door. She was half afraid he might mistake the hammering heart for knocking it was so loud.

This… this was it. This was really happening. She'd been brave and now a part of her sexual fantasies were about to come to life. Behind that green door just minutes before midnight.

She only had to knock once before he opened the door on her, and her eyes opened comically wide.

He was… jittery. His hair was in all sorts of delicious disarray as if someone has freshly peeled him from a bed. His fingers nervously tapped against the side of the door where he still held onto it as he stared back down at her with eyes so wide and intense she had to swallow. He looked… delicious. _Casual_ … (Should she have looked more casual?). He was wearing a black T-shirt that was just that little bit tight and hugged his form, and the way his arm and elbow were propped against the side of the open door, it was riding up a little on one side to… to… That sliver of skin just above where the waistband of those _soft_ -looking sweatpants started, the dip of a dimple created by the very pronounced V of his hips and… Her mouth ran dry and she _felt_ that in her body and she had to quickly avert her eyes so she wouldn't stare or like, fucking drool and her eyes fell to his feet instead.

He was barefoot, one foot tapping almost… almost _nervously_.

She must have stared at him stupidly, and he stared stupidly back and… and…

His eyes kept straying to her bare legs.

She should probably say hi.

But, ya know, of course she didn't.

It was an awkward, staring silence later that he cleared his throat, and his voice sounded so, so strained.

"Do you… uh. Do you want to come in?"

She nodded dumbly, and so did he, but he didn't move away from the door and the way he held onto it, almost as if blocking her path. She could see the second he realised this little fact reflected in his eyes, and he practically jumped back from the door up the step behind the genkan, and Usagi fucking _gulped_ and slipped in to bend and take her shoes off, taking her time.

When she looked back up, him standing that step above her, making him even taller than her than he already was, he was looking back at her absolutely wide-eyed.

And then he turned. "Come... Come in," he said, and motioned for her to follow.

She'd been here once before. He used to help Ami study and once Usagi had tagged along, but even if the big one room layout was the same, it had still changed a little bit.

Yeah, the beige couches were bare and as ugly as they always were, but the bed to the side of the window was a little bigger, not the old twin bed she remembered. And it wasn't as…. Well it was clean, impeccably so, and orderly for the most part, but it wasn't as… as _spotless_ as she remembered it having been that time she'd seen it and he'd actually been expecting guests. She could see him tense and gather some papers on his coffee desk and blindly chuck them into a drawer, his hand running through his hair before and after the erratic action.

And then he slipped behind his counter that seperated the tiled kitchen portion of his one-room apartment from the rest of his living space and turned his back to her.

"Do you… do you want a coffee, too?" he asked the tiles.

She found herself following him, standing just where the hardwood floors met the tiled kitchen floor, her hand digging into the hem of her skirt.

He was pouring coffee into the biggest coffee mug she'd ever seen, the sound long and drawn out and weird in the absolute silence of his apartment.

"No," she answered, and he nodded mutely towards the counter.

And then her stupid mouth began to babble.

"I'm on the pill you know," she squeaked out.

He whirled around, shocked wide eyes screaming something along the lines of 'why the _hell_ would you tell me that?!' and then he flinched and hopped because in doing so, he'd spilled hot coffee over his fingers.

" _Shit_ ," he cursed, shaking his hand, and Usagi flinched apologetically.

"Sorry," Usagi cried with a cringe and then mumbled, "Information I thought I should put out there…"

He exhaled slowly, running his hands under the tab then cleaning the messy outside of his mug, and finally took a too long sip, grimacing, and blew on the mug instead.

When he put it back down on the counter – slowly, carefully, _stalling_ – Usagi had decided to take matters into her own hand.

She took one step towards him and closed the distance between them, his eyes blowing wide, and then she grabbed at his T-shirt and pulled.

His lips were fucking _trembling_ , and absolutely frozen, when she kissed him; his hands raised and his puffed out breath minty fresh even around the coffee taste as if he'd _also_ just brushed his teeth for this and when he finally came out of his stupor and started ever so tentatively to kiss her _back_ with that little _whimper_ and—

And then his hands were at her shoulders, forcefully pushing her back. "Whoa, _whoa_ , Usagi, _wait_ —"

She froze. Mortified. Had she… had she misunderstood? Had she read this wrong? Had she just… Oh god.

They spoke at the same time.

"Slow down—"

"Oh god, I'm _sorry_ , I thought—"

He shook his head sharply, apologetically, and he looked so… so lost.

Her chest filled with sudden, crushing shame.

"We… we should talk," he said carefully.

She nodded, wide-eyed. Followed him out of the kitchen trailing after him and his giant's coffee mug.

"Yes," she mumbled, bright red, "You said… you said rules, I'm sorry I—"

His hand in his hair again. "It's… it's really ok."

With a start, she saw his lips were a little pinkish now. Just barely. Faint and easy to miss, more like flushed looking, if she didn't know better… and _just_ a little smeared on one side. But the little, miniscule trace of her lipstick on him _pounded_ into her so hard she really didn't know how to take the sensation.

She swallowed, but settled onto the couch next to him when he motioned for her to sit.

She didn't miss the fact that he was pushing his back towards the farthest possible distance from her, facing her but not looking her in the eyes.

"Yes, um," he started, "I think rules would be… smart."

She nodded, folded her hands primly in her lap.

And found his eyes once again at her legs before he ripped them forcefully away…

"And maybe sleep a night over it," he mumbled, and then his eyes blew up again and they finally met hers. "But not… not like _that_."

She cringed. Obviously, she'd spooked the poor man something fierce. "Sleep over it," she parrotted dutifully back at him.

"Yeah. Like a month."

It was her turn to gape at him comically. "What?"

"Or like, the weekend."

She blinked at him. "It's… it's Wednesday."

He swallowed, nodded. "It is, yes."

She inhaled, nodded. "Ok! Sure. Of course, I mean," she babbled. "I didn't mean to rush you, I just thought…"

She trailed off, and he exhaled long and slowly. When his eyes blinked back up at her, there was something soft in them, that made her feel even worse.

He rubbed at his face, across his mouth, and with a pang she realised that now her lipstick was no longer staining his lips and it felt...

"This is… this is very sudden for me Usagi," he admitted softly.

She flinched, everything in her doubled over in shame, "God, I'm… I'm _so_ sorry I…"

He shook his head sharply, interrupted her.

"I… if it's ok with you, I'd like to take this… a little slower than you seem to have in mind."

She knit her fingers into the hem of her skirt so hard her fingers turned white, and fell over all of her words in her rush to push them out. "I'm… of course! Yes. Yes, of course. I _swear_ , I didn't _mean_ to assume that… I just thought that… you know how you always _hear_ how guys would want to like, immediately and—"

She stopped, wide-eyed – thoughts jumbled and at an impasse and – and he threw her a look.

"Give… give me the weekend. To… to prepare," he croaked out.

This time it wasn't shame but confusion that made her stop. What? "Prepare?" What _for_?

And… did his cheeks… did he _blush_? "Uh…"

She shook her head. "Whatever you want. I… you can have that month too if that's… and you don't have to do this at _all_ if you don't… I'm not… this isn't—"

"Just the weekend," he interrupted her firmly. "I only need the weekend."

Oh.

She nodded mutely.

"So, let's take this slowly. Not uh… not rushed," he said.

"Whatever you want, Mamoru. I'm… Nothing you don't want. I'm so sorry if I—"

His breath hitched, but he interrupted her again. "Right," he said firmly.

She fell back against the arm of his couch, tucked one leg underneath her and mirrored his pose exactly. He was still _watching her legs_ and at least… at least she was fairly sure that he _was_ attracted to her too like this…

This time he spoke without taking his eyes off her legs. "What is it you want to do exactly," he asked breathlessly.

She licked her lips, her heart jumpstarted back up immediately "Experience," she breathed out.

He lifted his eyes from her legs up to her face to frown at her. "You keep saying that word," he reprimanded.

She helplessly shrugged. It is what it is.

He licked his lips this time, and she _hated_ how her eyes zeroed in on the action.

"So…" he started "…you want this to… learn, I take it."

She flushed, she couldn't help it.

"What is it you want to learn, Usagi…"

Her shoulders immediately flew to her ears. "Um, I told you it wasn't—"

But at that, Mamoru's eyes flashed into a familiar glare. "Usagi," he scolded. "Here's rule number one."

She blinked.

"If we do this, you need to be honest with me."

She nodded. Right, right, yes. She agreed. That's why she told him about her feelings for Tuxedo Mask in the first place, that's why—

"If we do this: as you say, all cards on the table," he continued, and then a short pause. "What are you expecting out of this? What is it that you want to learn?" he asked again.

She swallowed wide-eyed. "I…I'm honestly not sure?" she admitted, and he threw her a look. "Maybe like… how to seduce someone? How to be sexy. Sexual. How to be alluring."

If possible, his glare turned even darker. "You don't need me for that," he said.

She blinked at him in confusion. "But I do. He doesn't—"

He shook his head sharply, impatiently, like he did when he said stuff that was absolutely logical, but she just didn't seem to get it at all.

"Usagi, you're already alluring," he said like an accusation. "He's blind if he doesn't see that."

She rolled her eyes and sighed. Riiiight.

"Well, maybe like," she continued, dismissing him, "how to tell someone you like them then. I'd… really like to learn that."

At that, he exhaled slowly, snorted out something of a broken noise, almost ironic, and she glared at him this time. Was he making fun of her?!

"I mean it," she glared.

"I know you do."

She swallowed, heartbeat picking back up like a traitor. "And also… I meant it. At the Fruit Parlor. I do want to… I really want to experience things. With you."

A beat of silence where he simply held her gaze and she felt it in her chest.

"Oh," he eventually said.

She licked her lips. "But of course, like, only things you also… _if_ you also... I mean that we _both_ … we both want. We should probably make that a rule too. And be open about, you know, if… or what…"

She trailed off - his eyes were glued to hers, even when he slowly nodded.

"I've never uh…" she started, and broke off with a shake of her head. That really wasn't relevant, was it? Instead she decided on, "I want to learn what it's like. I want to learn how it's… with someone. Doing… things. Feeling… these things."

His eyes were wide.

"I… don't want to wait for that anymore."

He swallowed. "Ok…" he breathed. "Ok."

She frowned. "…ok?"

He nodded sharply, breathlessly. "Ok," he repeated, even when she had no clue what it was that was going on in his head. "Let me… let me prepare."

"Ok," she breathed back, stupidly.

And then that silent stare again, and she felt it was time to leave. Besides, he did look a little tired.

But when she'd gotten up he'd looked at her in alarm and when she'd stepped around his coffee table back towards his hall he'd jumped up from his perch hugging the furthest corner away from her on his couch and practically ran after her.

"Wait!" he bellowed.

And then he was in her personal space and leaning down like he had that day at Juuban Matsuri when she thought he'd been about to kiss her.

And again, nothing happened. He straightened back up and his expression slipped back into stoic unreadableness and she exhaled.

But he licked his lips. "Just… just a weekend, ok? And then I'll…" he said, _his_ voice suddenly falling over words.

She nodded, and smiled, and exhaled. And then she got up on her tiptoes and he _froze_ when she leaned up to brush her lips softly against his cheek in a lingering kiss.

"See you Monday, Mamo-chan," she whispered in his ear.

He was still standing rooted and wide-eyed on the spot when she'd slipped through his door.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there you go, some insights into why Usagi is doing this in the first place, and, ya know, stuff ;) I hope you liked it, please let me know - I ALWAYS love to hear from you and I totally mean it, nothing gets me to write faster lol. (Horrible, I know. But it is what it is I'm one needy fic author lol.)
> 
> Next up, Mamoru's weekend preparations.


	3. Research

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I'm so happy for your trust in me and this story, lol! Thank you SO much for those of you who reached out to me and reviewed for me! It keeps me motivated to yank this out faster like NOTHING ELSE! Abso-fucking-lutely!
> 
> And thank you to my beta, Uglygreenjacket. You have the wildest life right now, and still you have my back! MWAH MWAH MWAH!

* * *

The Unintentional Seduction of Chiba Mamoru  
Chapter 3: Research

* * *

The fact that he hadn't had sex yet had never _really_ bothered Mamoru before. And why would it? Sure, sometimes when he lay awake at night and imagined it (with _her_ ), there was this longing. Of course there was. But it wasn't something he'd ever intended to just tick off on a list of personal achievements, and so it didn't matter all that much.

The thing is… it would never have been a big deal. One day, sooner or later, he would have had sex - and let's face it, even if, say, his 17 year old self probably wouldn't have _minded_ a tumble with someone else (read: Sailor Moon); particularly his 18/19 year old self _especially_ had been hoping it be with Usagi very, very, _very_ deeply, and if that ever came to be, it would have been all his fantasies come true just because of that hitherto. And whoever he'd have shared the experience with, it would probably have been a little awkward and maybe involved a lot of unsure fumbling, but he would have eventually been fine. Other people managed it just fine, too; he'd never seen any reason why it wouldn't have been the same for him - even if it was never to be with Usagi in the end.

It wouldn't have been a big deal. Frankly, it hadn't been anything he'd ever worried about (at least past the age of 15 where it had basically briefly been his teenage job to worry about nothing else but that.)

Now, he was suddenly freaking out. Now, he was suddenly regretting all his life choices in that regard. NOW, he had something to prove.

NOW, he suddenly needed to be some sort of sex guru. Someone suave and cocky and skilled and having something to teach in that matter. Something to prove to _her_.

He was absolutely fucked. (And not in the way he really, really wanted to.)

* * *

Even though he'd previously gone about 40 hours without sleep, Mamoru's eyes blinked open at 8 am sharp on Thursday morning just like they usually would when he didn't have an alarm set for earlier.

Despite a pounding headache and every muscle in his body protesting, he fled his bed abruptly, as if it was his greatest enemy. And it kinda was - sleep was for the _weak_ , he didn't have enough _time—_

He texted Kobayashi to take notes for him and yet made his way to university anyway: He arrived in Shinjuku only about half an hour later, depositing his bike near Lawson's and hopping in for a Boss coffee can, only to stride purposefully onto Keio's Shinanomachi campus.

He usually hated that campus. Preferred the Mita one by far. But Shinanomachi had the bigger (if not a visibly pleasing) library, and less people knew him in that one on top of that, which, for his purpose, was a benefit he embraced wholeheartedly.

When seeking answers to a problem - get a book about it. It was a strategy that had served him well in life thus far.

He knew he was jumping the gun. He knew there was still definitely the possibility this might stop before anything happened and it might not come to… to _sex_ with _Tsukino Usagi_. He needed to remind himself of that. And besides, the way she'd phrased it, wanting 'experience', didn't necessarily MEAN she was expecting sex _specifically_. Even though it very much looked like she _was…_ In either case though, _if_ she was, and whenever it came to that, he needed to know what he was doing. Desperately. He needed to know _everything_. In excruciating detail.

Were there any techniques that ensured a woman's pleasure? What were things that aroused a woman? When was he supposed to do what _exactly_? What did women _like_? How did one best stimulate a clitoris? Were there things that he might accidentally do that could be painful? What was he supposed to _do_?

And since he was never in a million years going to _ask_ someone… he turned to his oldest companion: books. Books had never let him down.

And so, that's how he found himself in the biggest medical library at his direct disposal with red-tipped ears, a loaded up copy card, and a constant, nervous, straying gaze as he dove into _that_ section, confident that it would at least get him started.

It took him a while until he found what he was looking for - even armed with the exact cataloged call numbers for every book he was looking for that he'd unearthed from the online archive in extensive preparation (while sitting at the computer work spaces on the first floor with paranoid glances left and right to check if really _no one_ was looking at his screen) - they were hidden away and hard to find. Spread apart - from the obvious OB GYN departments to clinical psychology and gender medicine - he found the titles he'd been searching for in the very top and very bottom of the shelves, pushed into the darkest corners.

He snatched up every single title he could find - titles like 'Sexual Medicine and Science', 'The Science of Lust and Attraction', 'Introduction to Sexuality', 'Lust in Relationships', 'Sexual Therapy for Couples', 'Base Concepts of Sex Therapy', or 'The Psychology of Sexualty and Desire' - and carried it (with the spines to his belly so no one could see what it was) into the most isolated corner on the top floor next to the loud copy room with the vending machine - that corner where no one ever wanted to study, and cracked open the first spine.

It was when he closed down the fourth and then fifth and sixth book back up again that he was starting to panic once more.

How… _how_?! A book called 'Introduction to Sexuality' - how did it not introduce one to actual sexuality?! Why did they not tell him _what to do_?!

Skimming through the seventh of these he'd found elaborate communicative and CBT strategies to treat anything from erectile dysfunctions to vaginism that somehow ALL managed to summarize this without actually using the words penis or vagina, most of the procedures including long stretches of none-coital contact. A whole chapter on how to deal with lack of sexual appetence in women and how to 'handle' and 'circumvent' the fact when they did not feel any sexual arousal...but not a SINGLE mention of how one made a woman come?

By book number 13 his head was firmly in his hands. He had a very good grasp on the theory of the human sexual response now, or what it was that caused a woman's breasts and vulva to swell during arousal. He knew what hormones were secreted in which estimated dosages and what they did, and where the brain was firing meanwhile. He knew basic strategies to treat dyspareunia, and which veins in a penis caused the swelling and which didn't, where to inject a needle in it if you were to test physical causation for erectile dysfunction via quick tests, how lubrication worked and which glands were at least partially included in the process and where they were located and what signs were indicators if they were clogged - and he _still_ had absolutely no clue whatsoever what he could do with his cock that might hypothetically rock Usagi's world into falling in love with him while he did it.

Skimming through 4 books more and he now had a first introduction into the process of how to _make_ a vagina during gender reassignment surgery and yet he still had no clue how to _pleasure_ one.

By the time the afternoon had creeped up on him, he had to face the fact that everything he found here was more or less completely useless to him in answering his questions. Outside of perhaps now being somewhat equipped to watch out for anatomical oddities that might inhibit her from experiencing pleasure, only some clinical books targeting to overcome sexual disorders only _vaguely_ even _broached_ the subject of the actual act. All these books focused on deficits, none on actual pleasure.

It took him about 5 and a half hours to finally give in and _very_ reluctantly change venues.

So, medical libraries apparently wouldn't do. But they weren't the only books he could consult! How about these sort of self-help guide books, then. He knew he'd seen those before.

And this was how, after a brief stop to fuel back up on Boss coffee, he wove his bike along Tokyo traffic back to Azabujuban and found himself on the grounds of the massive Tokyo Metropolitan Library in friggin Arisugawa no Miya Park of all places.

Crossing the little site with the clock tower where he met Usagi almost _every day_ he was an absolute nervous _wreck_ and needed to remind himself that no, going to a library per se was _not_ any whatsoever incriminating activity for him should he be caught at it. So, other than perhaps her friend Ami finding him with a stack of sex books, he…

Oh god.

But… it was the biggest. And the biggest public library in the city _surely_ could help him out, right? It held 2.06 million books in several languages for god's sake, there _had_ to be some info on what one did who had a penis and wanted to artfully work it around a girl, _right_?!

And while here the books he sought were hidden in the farthest corners, too, he was so reliefed to at least have found some variety that he sacked a little – even if it was startingly tedious to fish out the ones that were _actually_ about sex and didn't just have sex in the title, and even then that of those that actually _were_ on the topic, the covers and titles kind of scared him and all of them were at least a decade old if not more (Though he supposed not much probably happened in the world of sex in the last millennia so he reckoned he'd be fine). 'The Perfect Lover', or 'The World of Sex', were the tamest he'd found.

And yet, after 2 hours of looking nervously over his shoulder and facing the wall in the deepest, most secluded corner that he could have found in this very public, very busy library, and way into the afternoon with no food in his stomach yet, he was once again despairing. How was it that most of these guidebooks – even the ones written for women! – were focused on how to sexually seduce a _man_? He'd found at least a dozen guidebooks marketed _exclusively_ for women – and yet not a _word_ on what got _them_ going? Book after book after book written for women teaching how to pleasure a man… where were the ones written for men about returning the favor?

He learned how to rub a dick at age 13, thank you very much - he was trying to learn how to get a _woman_ to come - how could this be so difficult to find?

Returning his biggest stack of books yet with a panic that was starting to overtake _all of him_ (what the _hell_ was he going to _do_ if he didn't get any information?!) his eyes strayed to a few books two shelves over that made him do a double take.

_Sex Ed._

He almost audibly choked. _Duh_. He needed to look for _Sex Ed_ books. Why hadn't he thought of that before?!

What he found in _those_ was so underwhelming he wanted to cry.

He knew where to put the dick, thank you very much. That wasn't what he was here for. And also, he was a med student, the two thirds in these books dedicated solely to STDs were altogether unnecessary and also kind of badly researched. And so were whole sections about pregnancy, to be absolutely honest.

And then there was the fact that quite obviously, the older the book was, the more sexist and stereotypical it got. Even he could see that. Turns out: yes, publication age really, really _did_ matter after all, and none of the books he was currently leafing through were written in this decade.

And none of them taught him _how to get her wet, goddammit_.

Absolutely dejected and the sun beginning to set on him, a few hours later he checked out a handful of books. Among them a scary English book from the 70s compiling detailed accounts of female sexual fantasies that frightened the living shit out of him (and was also kind of racist), yet had been the closest he'd found to actually diving into the topic of what women _actually wanted_. And a guide that for once DID tell him at least some things what to do, yet they were so rigidly stereotypical and the things described as what 'all men' wanted in it so very much not translating to his own likings, that it made him immediately doubt all information provided - but before he had nothing at all to go on, sexism it was, he supposed.

Later, back at home, coffee machine running, making himself a sandwich and sighing into his hands a lot, he stalled.

But he knew it. He knew that it was the logical next step, now that books had failed him.

And so, with a burning face, he closed his curtains, switched off the light, sat on his bed, laid his lined notepad out with a ballpoint pen to take notes, woke his laptop… and opened a private browser window.

Mamoru didn't like porn… Of course, he _watched_ porn. Occasionally. Sometimes. Too often. But he knew that not so deep down he was very much a prude, and the porn he _did_ watch was a carefully curated bubble of what the internet deemed boring and vanilla sex, something he'd collected carefully over time, and any time anything else accidently permeated it he felt scandalized and somewhat dirtied even though rationally he knew this was all performed, scripted and thrill-chasing fiction that some people really enjoyed.

And, _obviously_ , even without ever having had sex, he knew of course that porn was far from realistic. A lighted stage with warmed up acrobatic bodies, depicting highly stereotypical acts that were mostly rarely achievable or even enjoyable in real life. But he _had_ an acrobatic body, he was a friggin superhero after all, and no, even though he did not want to learn from porn - _at all_ \- he couldn't _not_ give it a shot.

After all, his research seemed to be failing, and so he needed to go to a source where he knew he might at least…

And… what if the things in porn were expected of him? What if _Usagi_ expected these things of him?

He sighed, put in an address and clicked, bracing himself. Filter off.

The first video appearing in the list of recently recommended videos made him want to close the window right back up. A blonde woman with wet mascara marks running down her cheeks was titled to be 'Throat Fucked, Slapped, Choked, Spit on & Fucked Hard' and it coiled uncomfortably in his gut and he scrolled further down as fast as he could. He didn't have to start like _that_.

He didn't click the next one either. 'Fucking my ex wife's ass so hard she had to quit'. This… was not looking very good. Neither was the next title, and yet it was the first one he watched. 'I'm sure he liked to fuck the whore he paid for.' (Who _named_ these things? Who thought this was …in any way appropriate?!) In it, a faceless woman filmed just below the neck undressed for a camera before she took a bodiless cock into her mouth (at least it barely appeared on film) all without a single word spoken. But then, when Mamoru thought finally there was something happening that might help him, the scene cut and the bodiless cock now also had hips and was rutting her across a bed. What?! No! Where was the part that taught him how to _arouse_ someone?!

He clicked the next video, the most innocent looking yet, more like something he was used to watching. And yet, he immediately clicked out when suddenly the guy's hand was firmly wrapped around her throat and that made her moan? And he started slapping her? ? And _apparently_ it made her come violently and—

 _Nope_.

Next one. He exhaled deeply. A gangbang – because these three girls just 'loved to share'.

 _Nopenopenope_.

Then came a few that actually weren't so bad except of course they were still deeply disturbing and lacking all emotional impact but… The guys tended to stick their fingers in the girls' mouths a lot before they put their fingers… down there. Was that to lubricate? Was that something one should do? He made a note. Then in the more gentler videos, it seemed the guys put in only the tip first, working themselves slowly inwards deeper and deeper before going all the way, while only in the violent ones the cock was plunged in full immediately – he made a note about that, too. He started paying closer attention to the way the bodies were held – tried to discern from trembling muscles and unsure footing which positions seemed to be most comfortable and arousing for the women in the clips, though he really still didn't trust the moaning as an indicator of the latter if he was absolutely fair. Yet, he filled the notepad steadily, even if he cringed from time to time.

The next ones, for a longer while, unfortunately weren't ones he ever wanted to learn anything from. He still watched them, just to be sure.

And then came one named eloquently 'Guy Cums For The First Time While Pegging – Our Dirty Little Secret' and at the look of seeing the guy fucked by a dildo attached to an unaffected-looking blonde girl and absolutely falling apart under it, he got so hard and so shockingly scandalized at the same time simultaneously that he slammed the laptop shut and breathed deeply.

He suddenly remembered all the reasons very quickly why porn – at least _this_ kind of porn; the porn he found when he looked for the word 'porn' on the internet – tended to freak him out so much. A barrage of short clips baring all semblances of plot or romance or tenderness, leaving behind an armada of grids filled with the basics of sexual stimulation and crude language and dicks being shoved into widened, red or sore looking faceless holes. That weird cocktail of disturbing and arousing and confusing and appalling, with islands of things that made him curious buried in tides of things that made him want to bleach his eyes and brain out so he could forget ever having seen it. And why were most of these advertised as being your step-relative? And was there a reason why all the Japanese women in it tended to cry and whimper soft 'no's and 'don't's in every single video? Was that supposed to be arousing, seeing someone touched against their will? It scared him to think that this might be the truth – that there wasn't anything at all he could do to make it pleasurable for her in the beginning. That it will always be a no.

He didn't think he ever wanted to do it if that were the case.

And yet, here he sat, the audio coming through his headphones as always because he was paranoid his neighbours might hear, taking notes of angles and positions and—

He hated himself for the twitching in his pants despite all of this. Despite knowing all of this, despite feeling repulsed by most of this. The twitching that came with hearing all these _sounds_ and the _moans_ and the smacking of skin on skin and—

He got up, poured himself a coffee, grunted into his dark kitchen and ran a hand through his hair and kept it purposefully far away from his crotch, and opened the laptop back up. The guy was still enjoying his pegging very much and Mamoru made a note about it.

Next video. Another asian girl in a bus this time, a faceless man that touched her from behind. He clicked back out, turned on the next.

And it all seemed off. It didn't seem real. There was no connection, just power plays and cum and rutting and softly cried 'no's that broke his heart to be turned into overacted yeses.

And while Western porn didn't include nearly as many 'no's, they included a lot more dicks, a lot more holes, vaginas that looked red and sore and women that howled and screamed and moaned with eyes that didn't reflect that at all.

In the end – what he found, still, was focused on men. The camera angles, the orgasms, the way the shots were filmed to show a woman jiggling and leering at a camera yet so _often_ not even so much as a body was attached to the dick that was drilling into her. Hordes of willing women that were always ready and who had quick loud orgasms almost immediately, and he didn't _want_ to fathom that women actually liked to be handled like that.

With a deep sigh, he decided to change tactics. He clicked the category labeled explicitly 'popular with women'… and closed it back up again after skipping through the fifth rough gangbang (he _really_ wasn't a fan of those.)

Those videos did have better lighting. More artistic settings. Sometimes even somewhat of a plot, or even a few spoken lines beforehand. But the women were still handled like…

He wouldn't do that. In fact, watching this made him kind of afraid to hurt her. It _really_ didn't seem like—

And oh _god_ — The thought came sudden and it _pulled_ at him – What if he had increased strength even in his civilian form after all these years without his notice? Usagi was soft and breakable and didn't have the handy bonus of moonlighting as a super heroine and what if he broke her and—

He closed the category, clicked the next.

Hentai. Even worse. Why all this violent sex with monsters? Or all the mind control? All of this made him kinda want to not ever HAVE sex.

He closed the browser and sighed into the darkened room, the moon illuminating it sparsely.

No, he didn't _want_ to learn from porn. He'd spent the whole day searching for books that might help him so he would not have to do that. And yet, 55 minutes after he opened the first browser, his notepad was twice as full after _this_ shameful endeavor as it had been after a full day of non-stop library research on the topic.

And there were some things he learned. The nicer, softer, more inviting settings with the better lighting - once porn was at least _marketed_ for women - made him look at his apartment in scrutiny and remember how painfully out of place Usagi had looked on his couch in her colorful top and perfect legs sitting on his bland, beige, bare couch.

He had been able to document the ways the men held the women as they thrust from various angles and which ones caused louder moans. And while he felt these clips gave him a way better introduction into pleasurable fellatio than it did on cunnilingus, he was at least able to guess at some things tongues did with a vulva. And yet all that came with a giant, screeching halt of a limitation.

All these videos were so clearly, clearly filmed to be intended for men's consumption. Who even _knew_ how accurate all of this was from a woman's standpoint - if anything he saw there even vaguely represented women's likes? Or, specifically, let's face it, what _Usagi_ liked?

He stared blankly at the ceiling. This was never ever going to work. How the hell was he supposed to _fake_ this—

His thoughts strayed back to Usagi sitting on his bland misfit of a couch beneath her and he didn't like it. He hated the thought. Usagi didn't fit into his apartment. Everything here was rather cold and sterile and hard. Soft and warm and _genki_ and carefree were not things that were a bare beige couch. The thought hurt. The thought that she looked misplaced in his life. That she'd looked wrong sitting there.

He needed to do this. He needed to nail this. It might be his only chance with her.

With a sigh, he opened a new private browser, googled female reception to mainstream porn, and nearly jumped in hope.

There were whole web _pages_ dedicated to this topic. Feminist essays, articles about the male gaze in mainstream pornography, _forums_ and… and there was a whole _genre_ of feminist porn?! Why had none of his books mentioned this?

…And a whole _line-up_ of so-called 'sex-positive' sex ed podcasts in English made by women, advertising to discuss sex and porn and female pleasure and oh _yes_ —

Stuttering heart, he started to download.

Of course, it was exactly that moment that he finally saw something that might promise progress, when the tell-tale pain shot up his spine that indicated that Sailor Moon was _transforming_ and fuck, he didn't have time for this, not _now_ —

Tuxedo Mask cursed under his breath as he jumped rooftops all the way back to Arisugawa no Miya park of all places, cursed even more that Sailor Moon was so on top of the fight even when she was alone - she wouldn't even have needed him, most probably.

Not that that ever made him stay away, of course.

All he had to contribute this time was a shout, really. Momentarily distracted, Sailor Moon hit the Youma square and center with her pink tsunami of an attack and it was instant history. He barely had time to hop off his perch on a nearby tree, and she curled her eyelashes up at him with an adorable smile immediately.

He only noticed now that she was alone this time.

Looking at her, everything stilled to a halt in him.

Sailor Moon. His first crush, Sailor Moon. His first _kiss,_ Sailor Moon. Maybe _she_ could—

He almost choked on his saliva. He must have stared at her dumbly, because she was looking at him curiously and he thought perhaps she's said something but he hadn't listened and—

But…Maybe… if he…

After all, Sailor Moon had always seemed receptive and maybe he could take care of the problem of his virginity quickly and swiftly and—

The thought came sudden and terrifying and appalling. What if he asked _her?_ What if he asked Sailor Moon for one night of casual sex - not unlike Usagi had done to him - to learn from her how it's done? To ask her all night and in painstaking detail what it was he had to do so she would enjoy it, try it all out on a live model to give him feedback and pointers?

The thought was so _atrocious_ , and yet it burned through him and caused him to stare at her lips and her butt and her legs and her hair, not letting him go even if he despised himself for it.

"Uh… hey?"

He loved _Usagi,_ goddammit…

"Um… Are you ok…?"

But that's why he was trying to learn this, right? For _Usagi_. And here was someone in his reach that he shared a mysterious magical bond with who had _all the answers for him_ …And..

"Tuxedo Mask…?"

All he had to do was ask her and maybe, just _maybe_ she'd be willing to teach him...

She cocked her head to the side and lightly touched his arm in concern, beautiful blue eyes so warm and thoughtful and he jerked out of his despicable thoughts by the touch of her small, sweet, perfect hand.

He dismissed the shocking temptation in horror, locked it away and caged it and buried it somewhere deep in his subconscious because NO. This wasn't what he …

"You seem a little stressed..." she said up at him, her nose wrinkling cutely, not unlike Usagi's used to do a lot.

One of the lights in the park lampposts was flickering, creating shadows on her face as she peered up at him expectantly, and his breath wooshed out of him and he slumped at the caring look in her eyes.

God, he was so bloody awful for even thinking this.

"I'm preparing for something big," he said eventually, rubbed a hand across the stiff back of his neck and cracked it, eyed the trees for escape.

It was eerily quiet in this park at this hour of the night. Her boots clicked on the asphalt as she moved a little.

"Like an exam?" she asked.

He clicked his tongue, frowned. "Something like that yeah…" Then he exhaled. "At least it feels like it…"

This was awkward. This wasn't soft words on a rooftop, this wasn't a quick wave and goodbye after a fight. This was in-between, and it was awkward because of him, because he'd stared at her butt and been distracted and—

And he was doing it again.

The look she threw him was absolutely puzzled, and he held it with tension thrumming through his limbs.

She regarded him with absolute confusion.

"Well, I'll leave you to it then…?" She trailed off, something shining through her words he couldn't place, but then she nodded, threw him another soft smile, and turned to go.

"Wait!" he stopped her, and his heart started pounding.

She turned big, beautiful, expectant eyes back to him.

"Can I… can I ask you something?" he croaked.

His heart pounded. No. _No_ , he couldn't do that. It was _wrong_. He can't—

He didn't.

It was a sheer miracle he could control his words, asked anything else instead.

"Do you think you can… uh… relax better when there's like… cushions on a couch?" he asked, and cringed immediately.

Her eyebrows rose to her tiara. "…Excuse me?"

He licked his lips. "Cushions," he repeated dumbly.

He supposed it _was_ on his mind, yes.

She looked absolutely bewildered. "I… don't think I follow."

He could feel his face heat. God, he was so… "I'm thinking of… redecorating," he mumbled, cheeks hot.

She blinked. "…oh? With… cushions?"

He groaned. Why was he such a disaster. But… if he was already asking, he might as well get an answer. Setting seemed to matter after all for… moods. He might as well see this through, stupid as it was.

"…maybe?" he said with a flinch, smacked his lips. "What do you think makes a room seem… relaxing? Comfortable?"

Sailor Moon looked him up and down, wide, confused eyes, and he couldn't really fault her.

But she did answer.

"I… don't really know? It uh… depends?" she said tentatively, tilted head. "But…a harmonious color scheme? Soft fabrics? Nice light?"

He nodded fiercely. "Thanks," and turned to leave and end this weird exchange.

He bent his knees to hop back into the tree he came from when Sailor Moon stopped him.

"Wait!" it was her turn to call.

He turned back around.

"Are you ok?" she asked once more, with concern in her eyes.

He stopped. Smiled a small smile at her and shrugged. "Frazzled," he admitted. "But it'll be ok, hopefully…"

When he left, she was just standing there, watching him go, waving. He waved back, a little stupidly, but a tiny bit calmer.

Really, he supposed his life would have been a little easier if he could have just…

What a weird world, really, where he thought trying to pursue Sailor Moon would have been an easier task than attempting to make Tsukino Usagi fall in love with him.

But what could he do? His heart was held firmly captive. He wasn't free to give it out the way he might have wanted at one time.

* * *

Podcasts, then.

And gosh, finally, _finally_ , he felt on track, even when what he learned was mostly not altogether reassuring at _all_.

Like the fact that all his initial questions really had no answer; could really only be answered individually. Or like the fact that they all seemed to agree that sex is something you really only get good at with practice… …

And also, communication apparently was key. Asking her what she liked. Openly telling her what you liked. Experimenting. Learning the ins and out of each other's bodies over time.

But he had to prove himself _before_ that, didn't they get this?!

Headphones in his ear, he devoured everything he could find.

In the car on his way to IKEA, he'd learned that getting wet for a woman was a sign of _early_ arousal, and apparently _not_ a start signal that it was ok to start humping. That came later. And while the women in his ear were frustratingly vague about what exactly it entailed, 'teasing' was obviously a winner.

Of course, pushing a cart through mazes of home goods, it really didn't help to hear that really, anybody's pleasure points were really quite individual, you had to find them, and that oh, by the way, if you touch in ways that aren't pleasurable, arousal can drop in free falls one second to the next and you botched it.

 _Yay_ …

Picking out new lamps, he suddenly had to yank his notepad from his backpack and pause the podcast, because buried in a subordinate clause there'd been _actual_ , concrete, tangible, direct _advice_?!

_Start from the outside going in – genitals are no-go zones during early arousal, avoid them for now. Read her signals._

Picking out a bunch of simple strung fairy lights (they seemed like something Usagi would like, right?) he was listening to two British women _very_ unapologetically comparing techniques of men who'd gone down on them, and when they mentioned there was an _app_ that lets your _train several techniques on your screen how to please a clit_ that was _actually based on empirical research_ with a sample of people who have vaginas of all ages and demographics, he consulted the app store right then and there in front of the express lane tills at IKEA and felt a bit like crying in relief.

Driving back into the center of Tokyo, lamps and curtains and candles in his backseat and tapping his fingers against the steering wheel, he was told that if you attempt to touch a 'lady garden', you better trim your nails the proper way and use a file. He looked down at his fingers in horror – he hadn't even _thought_ of that! He didn't even _own_ a nail file!

Then of course, later, and browsing Muji and Loft for a good nail file as well as expensive and luxurious egyptian cotton sheets, bed runners and cushions in a harmonious color scheme, these two rather delightful women started to scare the living shit out of him.

Because apparently, even when there was a very small percentage of women who _always_ came and could even come multiple times, between 5 and 10% of vagina-having people were anorgasmic, in part due to their genes. Solo or partnered, nothing they could do, these 5 to 10% would never have an orgasm. Nothing _he_ could do if this was the case with Usagi. And even if she was a woman who could orgasm, most women only came 'now and then' and young women came way less on average than even that - and that only increased if the woman in question knew her way around her own body or not…

So, if he wanted her to have a _really_ good time, he better get to know and nail all the _other_ factors that contributed to orgasming, if he couldn't control these other ones…

And to top this all off, he was awarded with the fact that what a woman liked was absolutely in flux depending on where she was in her cycle - and what worked one day might not work the other, and he wondered if he needed to start taking calendric notes once they got started...

Because let's face it, he didn't know how many shots he _had_ at getting this right… Even if he strictly stuck to his plan to draw this out as long as possible, stall for time and learn all her buttons first, she might just decide she had enough 'experience' gained at any point. Besides, if he absolutely flunked this…

He _had_ to make it count once he got there… There was a very good chance that he had _one chance only_ , if at all, to fuck her into wanting him.

And so, covering his couches with thick, grey, woolen blankets, charcoal linen and blackish-midnight blue velvet cushions, he let himself get told about the wonders of lube. Replacing his curtains and dressing his bed in colors similar to his couch cushions, he learned of 'easy edging' (it took him a while to get what that meant) via pelvic floor relaxation exercises and how to instruct those.

But it was well into the afternoon when luck struck. During a Q&A podcast session, he finally got some book advice! _Yes_! Books were back in the running! He'd been looking in the absolute wrong places!

And _what_ kind of books! Fucking _finally_! Frankly _promising_ sounding titles like 'More Orgasms Please – Why Female Pleasure Matters' or 'The Wonder Down Under – A User's Guide To The Vagina'.

And even when that trip with his backpack down into his precious Kanda Jimbocho bookstore area was the most uncomfortable he'd _ever_ been there and ever thought he ever _might_ be there, running from bookstore to bookstore to find _all_ the titles that were recommended and asking for them with red-tipped ears and somewhat of a stutter especially when the bookseller was a woman.

But, while he was at it, why not make this even _worse_ for him - and so an hour later he marched home with the favorite erotic novels and manga of the three female booksellers in all of Jimbocho he'd managed to convince to give him a recommendation (and what he was pretty sure was the phone number of one of them written in pencil on the first page in one of said books.)

And so, his weekend went on. He used three different colors of markers to categorize all his findings. He dreamt absolutely filthy things that made him terribly ashamed about Usagi that totally merged with the porn he'd been watching, and so he expensively downloaded the whole list of a sex-positive instagrammer's favorite feminist porn list. He made a playlist because one of the podcast women said it could install the right mood, scrolling to Spotify's 'sexy' playlists and making his own while cringing with almost every title. And to the tunes of Michael Bublé's 'Sway', he read a manga written by a female mangaka for a female audience that was startingly explicit and gave him horrible performance anxiety.

And he finally, finally felt he was learning worthwhile things.

And really, some things were so new he was _upsettingly_ shocked. Many of them were things he thought he really should have _ought_ to have been told at one point before, especially as a _medical student_. He'd literally spent a day skimming every book in Keio's medical library on the topic, and in _none_ of them he'd learned the fact that the clitoris was not actually only the nub on top of the vulva, it was an organ spanning the whole thing pretty much the size of a penis - since it was, anatomically, kind of actually a penis. (Something that gave him hope for about 5 minutes - he knew how to to stimulate (1) penis quite effectively after all.)

He learned that only about 20% of women achieve orgasm through vaginal penetration, and that even those 20% could also be attributed mostly through the clitoris - because the clitoris inner arms extended and wrapped around the vagina, making vaginal traction only pleasurable because it can indirectly stimulate the inner parts of the clitoris, and it made him hope a little harder. He now had an app that he used very rigorously to learn that, too, after all.

But then he came across a site where women recounted their bad sexual experiences and with that he was back to being afraid to ever put it in.

The painful and bloody UTIs that could become chronic that some women experienced after sexual encounters, just to start this horror trip off. And even excluding all traumatizing recounts of sexual aggression, those that border it and even just abrasive behaviour…

There were thousands of recounts of feeling bored and forgotten as 'someone ruts above them', staring blankly at 'someone who thought sex is just in and out as their eyes are squeezed shut in pleasure they seek only for themselves'. Then those that at least tried but it felt awful. Pain during penetration because of too much friction, men not being able to read cues or taking things too fast or sometimes not fast enough and then the atmosphere was gone.

Humiliating, disempowering experiences, or 'simply' those where the woman didn't feel she mattered. Guys not checking in and then asking how close the women were. Women giving up and faking - the verdict being that so often this was hopeless anyway.

Women who felt rushed, or worried during sex. Who felt they couldn't communicate their desires, or felt inhibited due to poor body image and other matters. Women who weren't aroused by anything their partners did.

And on top of that, tons of women who had never been encouraged to grow comfortable with their own pleasure, who were stuck without a vocabulary to even start, much less to instruct anyone else operating their bodies to give them guidance should they be in the apparently more likely to be unlikely case of having someone who was willing to listen.

Shit. Shitshitshit.

Anxiety shot through him white hot and furious. How could HE - who had NO experience whatsoever - ever even HOPE to achieve what apparently about half of the sexually active heterosexual male population couldn't?

He had work to do. And he was gonna do it.

He would eliminate every fucking last of these risks if it cost his soul.

On Monday morning, overcaffinated and still very much sleep deprived, Mamoru drove to M's in Akihabara - because that's where the internet said he should go, and found himself in a 7 floor sex shop (or 6 really, the 7th was exclusives only and he really didn't want to think about what it might hold) together with about 100 other japanese men and not a single woman. And then he browsed the long rows of shelves filled with everything from obscenely, _comically_ large dildos (how would that even fit?!) to tiny 'dollholes' (what?!), only to despair in front of a selection of 50 different types of lubes.

In the end, he bought five different brands of water-based lubes (because who _knew_ what she liked) and one silicone one, as well as two types of condoms (because yes, she said she was on the pill, but he was PRETTY sure it would all be a little less overwhelming for him and the chances of him lasting a bit longer during his first time would increase exponentially if he was at least separated from her by a thin sheen of rubber.) Not that he was PLANNING on getting those to use anytime _soon_. In fact, he fully planned on _stalling as long as possible_ so he could get more reading in.

But this weekend had been to PREPARE, and he was intent to prepare for _everything_.

Besides, somewhere well into Sunday evening a thought had taken hold of him he hadn't consciously looked at before in all of his panic, and suddenly, it consumed his entire mind.

Somehow, it looked like - somewhere in this horrible, horrible, _horribly_ torturous situation - he was going to get his wish. At least one single fraction of his wish.

Somewhere in all of this, he was on the road to sex with Tsukino Usagi. He was going to share his _first time_ with Tsukino Usagi, like his late teenage brain had begged and begged and begged for.

It was a little bit surreal, and still utterly freaking him out, but the flutter in his heart was on absolute overdrive not _just_ because he was so nervous.

It was when he was nearly at the till to buy his purchases that his eyes fell on a shelf. In between hentai and more hentai and _more_ hentai near the cash registers sat a book. It looked trashy. It looked sexist. It looked absolutely awful. Horrible cover, horrible title, _horrible_.

'Make Her Scream: Last Longer, Come Harder, And Be The Best She's Ever Had'.

He bought it as he'd bought all his purchases that weekend - unable to look the cashier in the eye.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So… just, ya know, pointing out that I literally do sex research for a living in part. If you come into my office it's not unlikely to find me watching porn at my work computer sitting next to my colleagues and I'm actually getting paid for that because that's, ya know, my actual work task sometimes.
> 
> And yes that means ALSO that the stuff in this chapter is very much real lol. The stats, the books, the sex shop in Akihabara, the porn, the area in Tokyo dedicated only to bookshops, even the app (it's called OMGyes and the makers behind it take their research seriously!)
> 
> Anyway poor baby is an absolute anxious mess and that's not a good mood for anything regarding sex in real life, ok?
> 
> Next up: First Actual Contact ;)
> 
> And as always, reviews are love, I LOVE to hear from you and your theories and your reactions and ALL THE THINGS - and also they're a magic elixir that make me want to write real fast!


	4. Touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go, guys! I'm really, really happy that some of you having as much fun with this trope as I do, and that you enjoyed my TED talk last chapter lol! Thank you to each and every one who has reached out to me in the reviews, you guys keep this story going! Thank you so much for your thoughts!
> 
> And biggest thanks to my beta, Uglygreenjacket. I keep chucking like, 8k word packages at you and you just get it done and I appreciate you sO hArD.
> 
> Anyway, I promised you first contact! Here you go!

* * *

The Unintentional Seduction of Chiba Mamoru  
Chapter 4: Touch

* * *

Come Monday evening, Mamoru was unsurprisingly still a nervous wreck.

He kept glancing at the digital clock on his microwave.

They'd said 8 pm. It was now 8:12.

Pacing restlessly around his apartment, he refrained from brushing his teeth _again_ (mostly because he was nervous he might not hear the doorbell over the electric whirr of his toothbrush and the rushing water), yet checked for the fifth time if really all the books were hidden, his browser history was clean (who _knew_ , maybe she wanted to watch a movie, or search something on his laptop?), and his apartment was spotless and inconspicuous.

His gut felt a little bit like whirring maggots.

Who was he kidding? He would never pull this off. It was absolutely naïve to think he might.

This afternoon after his oncology class (he really hoped his notes made _some_ sense – when his mind was useful again he'd seriously have to catch up on his classes, he couldn't remember a single thing about it), his two British ladies had discussed the merits of various thrusting techniques and he'd once again broken into panic. He _knew_ at least one of his new books mentioned those, but he wasn't _there_ yet and—

He was in over his head. He was inexperienced and lost and there was a ton of things they hadn't talked about yet, because he hadn't _known_ to talk about it, even if his British podcast saviours sounded as if it was all so easy and logical to think of these things.

Their two rules were not enough. There ought to be more. Even if just to protect his heart. Just take the 'casual' thing; that term she'd thrown around – what did she mean by that? What did it entail? He supposed exclusivity on her side went out the window for one, seeing as it was for that enviable blind moron of a mystery man that he was pulled into this in the first place – but he needed to at least demand there was no other except that one man, because surely it would break him to catch her flirting with anyone after he'd… with her… and…

Then there was the matter of him not knowing the ins and outs of what she had in mind; and that included boundaries of hers so he might not accidently overstep them in his naivete. And what were things that _he_ didn't want to do with her? There was absolutely nothing he could think of in that regard. A total blank – not surprising, seeing as he didn't have a single clue what he liked in the first place, how was he supposed to communicate boundaries like this?

And was anyone supposed to know or was he her dirty little secret? And if he was, he'd already broken that trust by talking to Motoki, and if so, he ought to confess.

…And, really, he knew he ought to put an out for himself. To make sure that at any point, he could stop this. If his heart couldn't take it…

He glanced back at his microwave. His apartment suddenly felt inadequately small and dingy. What did she think of it?

8:16.

What if she didn't come? What if she'd changed her mind?

He kept switching the fairy lights he'd bought and installed over the window above his bed on and off, absolutely undecided if it was overkill or not.

They were currently switched off when he jumped out of his skin and his doorbell rang. The _apartment_ one, not the front door, how had she—

He swallowed his suddenly deafeningly pounding heart and went to the door on stiffest legs, everything in him on highest alert – prickling, rushing, tingling—

Oh _god,_ what had he done, what did he think—

Opening the door to the rushing in his ears felt both stilted and somehow like perceiving time in a wrong manner – too slow, too out-of-body. He was breathing weirdly.

But there she stood; thick, woolen cardigan, cream colored blouse and dark red tailored trousers, a sheepish, somewhat nervous smile playing around those gorgeous, shining, kissable lips, and one eye winking closed as she raised two bottles of wine in a way of greeting.

"I'm sorry I'm late…" she said with that same smile, shifting from one leg to the other.

She wore ballet flats in the color of her cardigan. No socks.

He swallowed, his fingers clenched tight against the laquered wood of his door. She was just so…

She was so pretty. And she was here to kiss him, and to… and to…

This was _Usagi_. And he was allowed to _kiss her_. _Finally_. And to…

"You're too young to buy these," he said like an absolute tool, nodding towards the bottles in her hands and remaining rigid and stoic, because the alternative would have been to start hyperventilating.

He was pretty sure she hadn't rolled her eyes that hard at him in about a year or so.

But it felt normal, and he relaxed a miniscule amount. Enough to move aside and let her through.

It looked like he didn't need to worry and he'd be fairly safe – as per usual, his clammed up, nervous façade read to her like calm douche. A blessing and a curse all in one, as always. Why should it be any different now?

She shot him a look – those gorgeous, mesmerizing eyelashes flicking up at him and piercing him with that addicting color of blue, and she stepped into his genkan.

"Rei bought them for me," she said, held out the bottles. He concentrated really hard not to tremble when their hands brushed as he took them from her, but he seemed to have managed. She bent just a little and slipped out of her shoes, it didn't even take two seconds, and her eyes were back on him.

"She turned 20 in April," she finished, and he was momentarily lost, because this was all… very intense for him.

Right. Alcohol. The one in his hands.

"Ah," he croaked, then froze. "Your friends... know about this?"

He'd turned weirdly, not able to look at her for this question that… meant a whole lot to him whether he was willing to analyze why or not, and walked from the hallway into the one room of his one-room apartment. He suddenly looked at it as if he'd never seen it, from the eye of someone seeing it for the first time, and he was overly critical. He should have switched the fairy lights on after all. It looked…

The sound of her bare feet padding after him on his hardwood floors bounced off his hammering heart.

"Are they not supposed to?" she asked, tone bewildered, and he chanced a glance, almost in his kitchenette area now and behind the counter, and something in his heart gave away at her confused look.

He licked his lips. "Isn't this... I don't... do you..." he stuttered, then gave up in a huff and a frown right down at her that probably looked too much like a glare and would surely be misread by her again – but he'd never _had_ any control over what kind of impression he gave off to her.

Her feet were _tiny_. Her toenails were painted a bright candy pink.

A small smile played around her lips. Sexy and sweet all in one and she huffed out around it as she threw him a playful glance. "What, are you ashamed of me?"

What?! Did she read him _that_ wrong?!

"Uh..."

Her smile stretched across her lips for just a second before she shot him another of those intense looks and shrugged, then looked away, across his one big room. "Don't worry," she said. "I'm kidding."

He exhaled only to be blown over.

Another shrug, a smile more sheepish, more fleeting. "I _know_ you kinda are," she finished as if it were common knowledge, made absolute sense, as if it weren't a big, wrong warning sign suddenly erected in the middle of his apartment.

He choked. She wasn't even finished.

"I know I'm not your favorite person," she said with a wink, then turned to his bookshelf, read some of the titles with a light frown painted on her brow.

The biggest lie ever spoken in this house right there and he was fumbling too hard to set it right.

He looked at her wide-eyed, shocked, trying to convey how wrong that was, and how did he start—

She didn't give him time to find the words.

She glanced around again, her eyes flicking to his beige couch, the new lamps, and she walked to the bed and brushed her fingertips along the midnight blue, velvet bed runner on top of his new charcoal colored cotton bed sheets. It was the softest he'd been able to find, the color matching one third of the couch cushions exactly, as well as his eyes.

(Because he _needed_ her to think he looked good in that bed. _Needed_ her to want him in it with her.)

"Did your apartment change again?" she spoke to his bed, her fingers lifting off the fabric with a delicate curl of her hand that might have happened in slow motion according to his perception of it.

"I just cleaned up, got some stuff out of storage," he lied like a tool. "I change things around from time to time – and I wasn't expecting guests the last time you were here."

He caught her gaze flicking to his cactus on the windowsill above the bed – the unchanging cactus he'd had ever since he moved in here and that now sat there in its new, color-coded enamel pot, and now framed by a lush, new orchid and a green spider plant, as well as two thick, rustic candles and new curtains all in a harmonious color scheme with the rest of the fabrics in this place.

"Right," she murmured towards his cactus, and he felt like disappearing into his hardwood floors.

He swallowed thickly as she roamed around the room further, glancing at his shelves, the constellation pictures on his walls.

Her pink toes ceased to make sounds against his floor when they padded onto his green carpet and he frowned at it.

It didn't match the new charcoal-blue-cream/beige color scheme. Should he have changed it? ...Though actually, with the plants included… maybe it did fit?

He was having trouble getting his nerves under control something fierce, and his eyes flicked back to her candy toes on his carpet once more. They shifted in his view, pointed to him.

He flicked his eyes back up, startled, and found her gaze on him. She was rubbing her hand against one pant leg.

"Listen Mamoru," she mumbled, and his breath caught.

He refrained from putting his hands against his ears because the word 'Listen' usually wasn't followed by anything good and his heart really feared what followed.

_This is a stupid idea.  
_ _Let's call this off.  
_ _I changed my mind.  
_ _So that guy noticed me now and I don't need your help anymore…_

But somehow, what she said instead was both utterly surprising to him and made his heart melt even further.

She looked at him with steady, apologetic, concerned eyes, her hand curling against her leg almost nervously. "If at any point you change your mind, that's ok, ok? You _can_ change your mind! If you don't want to do this anymore… no questions asked, ok?"

He stared at her. Everything in him was a little mushy, and he supposed it showed weirdly, because her eyes became more unsure instead of less.

"I know I'm asking a lot of you…"

It seems he hadn't needed to worry about creating an out for himself. Of course, he didn't. He was currently attempting to bed the warmest, most considerate, most compassionate person he had ever met. The woman he'd chosen for his heart was trying to protect him, too, even when she didn't know how fiercely in danger he was.

He nodded. "...ok," he managed.

Her frown turned harder. "So, do you still…"

This time he managed to find his voice sooner. His "I do," came out strong and fast and sure and immediate, and it apparently managed to drive a little bit of trepidation from her eyes.

He breathed out slowly. Turned and got two long-stemmed, crystal wine glasses from the cupboard above him and uncorked the bottle.

She came with wine and consent tonight, he should make use of both of those.

He poured slowly, deliberately, not really trusting his trembling hands, and it created that unique sound of fluid flowing into a container and he held his breath.

"That counts for you too," he said as he sat the bottle aside.

"Hm?" she made.

"If you change your mind," he said, and flicked up his eyes to her as he lifted the glasses. "No questions asked."

He walked back around the counter slowly, his heart thudding almost painfully as he caught her checking him out as he did.

Her eyes were only back on his when he held out one glass to her, and she took it with a slight red tint to her cheeks that made him want to kiss them.

She averted her eyes quickly, murmured a thanks, and her feet restlessly padded back to his shelves, her fingers running along book spines and picture frames of mostly art-print postcards.

He leaned against one of his shelves and watched her, slowly sipping from his own glass.

"So…" he started, and his voice did that thing where it became lower and breathier because he was nervous. "What would you like to start with?"

It was probably dangerous to let her decide. He needed to take this slowly after all for his own sanity, and to get to his best shot. The last time she'd had the reigns in this, her tongue was at his unsuspecting lips.

Judging by the way her eyes flicked to his lips and her cheeks colored even more, she seemed to remember the same.

"What do you suggest?" she whispered.

He held her eyes. "What is it you want to learn first?" he threw back, leaning his head against the wood of his shelf, never letting go of her gaze.

But apparently there was something too intense about the eye contact for her, and she broke it off and her feet restlessly shuffled off towards his glass vitrine at the other side of the wall – putting as much distance between them as his one-room-apartment allowed.

"To be fair, I'm pretty sure I suck at all of it," she said in an easy, conversational tone that made him frown.

He sent her a glare against her back.

It was as if she felt it. "Maybe not all of it," she said with a shrug, and ran her index finger along his stereo. "But I can't even tell a guy I like him."

His heart thudded. That… really wasn't what he wanted to start with 'teaching' her.

"Maybe that's the hardest part…" he mumbled.

Besides, he really, _really_ didn't want to hear her say it. Didn't want to hear the words and not have them mean _him_ …

And then there was the fact that he was the worst and most rubbish role model material for this he could think of for very obvious reasons. Not that his virgin ass was any better at anything ELSE on the agenda, but with this particular lesson he had definite and apparent proof standing right in front of him of how hard he sucked at it. The woman of his affection knowing so little of his affection she was asking him to instruct her in how to confess her own affection to someone else. This special kind of irony was unsurpassed, really. Meanwhile, the rest on the agenda he might still turn out to be a surprise natural at, who ever knew, but this he already long knew he was hopeless at.

"… I bet you're really smooth and good at it," she told his glass vitrine and he just so refrained from snorting his wine back out his nose.

"…Why would you think that?" he managed.

She half turned, met his eyes for just a second with a blush and then averted them again and moved her travelling fingertips to his desk. "The stuff you say sometimes…" she said, and she flushed even harder, color stretching down the back of her neck, and he held his breath…

"What do I say sometimes, Odango?" he whispered.

The color reached the hem of her blouse. He kept his mind from imagining how far down her blush went.

But she didn't answer, and she steeled her shoulders, and met his eyes with a determined set to her lips even when her cheeks were firmly pink.

"Well, maybe that's what I want to learn first, then," she announced, and he had to swallow.

He realized again that everything he did here would probably be used on someone else, and for about the fifth hundredth time, the stray thought flitted through his mind and he contemplated giving her terrible advice.

It was a tempting, tempting thought.

And besides, with _this_ at least, he was fairly sure that all he _had_ to give was terrible advice anyway.

He'd spent the weekend researching everything from methods for oral sex to testing out different pressures of stroking his fingers against his own underarm to try and determine which touches might be the most pleasant for her. But telling someone you liked them? His heart was in his throat and the words were terrifying and right there, ready to expose and doom him.

There was this whisper in his mind. Urging him to just _say it_. To just… be honest, and let her know, and to say it. Now. Here.

And she wasn't helping.

"What would you say?" she said, turning to him fully, but remaining across the room.

"Hm?" he choked out. He stiffened. Froze, turned rigid against his leaned position at his shelf and shifted.

"If you were to confess to a girl. What would you say?"

Her eyes were wide, expectant.

A few moments passed in which she held his eyes and he was going into cardiac arrest because he knew he was going to blow this, but… she was _here_. And she was trying to confess to someone _else_ and…

He was going to blow this before they'd even started. She'd be out the door and calling this off in two minutes tops.

But his heartbeat hammered almost painfully, and the words just blurted out.

"I'm in love with you," he shot out, and to his own biggest surprise, he sounded _calm_. He held _eye contact_. "I have been for a long time."

Her pretty eyes blinked at him in surprise, and he panicked. He backpedaled. Hard.

He cleared his throat, shifted. "There. Easy," he rushed out and fixed his eyes against his green rug between them. "That's how you say it."

He could hear her glare loud and clear. "…It's not that easy, baka."

 _Fuck,_ did that hurt…

He shook his head, started off the wall and back to his kitchenette to top up his glass.

"Maybe we should postpone this part," he growled.

"What, why?" she asked, whirling back around.

He shrugged awkwardly without looking. "It's the hardest. We should leave it for now."

"Oh…"

He couldn't. He couldn't do it. He couldn't practice with her telling someone she likes them. He couldn't.

His glass hadn't been empty. Now, it was fuller than before, and the sound of pouring was back to being painfully loud.

When he turned around, she stood in front of his bed, looking at it. "What should we start with instead?" she whispered.

He exhaled slowly.

"You could tell me what you want to happen tonight, Usagi…"

* * *

"So, how was it?" Minako demanded, standing in Usagi's door the next morning in her Sushi pajamas and with her orange toothbrush in her hand.

Usagi groaned. This would have been the time she'd thrown Minako back out, demanding it was too early, exiled her like she did the cats this hour of the day, but Usagi hadn't slept that much.

"This was a horrible idea," she groaned into her Tuxedo Mask pillow instead.

"So good, or so bad?"

Usagi whined, flipped up her trusty, ancient moons-and-bunnies comforter over her head and buried herself completely beneath it, rendering herself invisible. "Mina-P, I don't think my heart can TAKE this level of horny," she lamented, hidden and muffled through the layers of fabric.

"So good, then." She could _hear_ Minako's triumphant smirk in that.

Her cheeks heated in her warm fabric-y confines and she supposed somehow Minako could hear that, too.

"You do realize I am in physical need to know everything and you better start spilling."

Usagi glared against Tuxedo Mask.

She flipped her comforter back down and glared at Minako instead.

"I… don't even know what it is about him. He used to piss me off so much and yet…"

Minako rolled her eyes, waved her toothbrush around. "You're horny, yes. Go on. Details."

"You don't understand," Usagi groaned into her hands. "This is _bad_. I got aroused by touching someone's _wrist_ , Mina-P. What the _fuck_ —"

* * *

Of course, she evaded his question.

Her hands were clammy. Her heart was going too fast. She couldn't ever remember being this nervous. Not with Tuxedo Mask or anyone, and she held onto her wine glass like a lifeline, while he was just so… so infuriatingly _composed_ …

Her heart was fluttering hard and…

There was something about his presence. Tall and dark and looming and _man_ and all-consuming and… he'd obviously freshly showered. His hair wasn't damp… but it was incredibly shiny and smooth and that little stray curl that usually flicked off to the side was expertly tamed in a way that suggested he'd recently carefully combed his hair into soft submission with a blow dryer. And the fact that she could smell the soap and shampoo and the _clean_ in the air and on him, and she bet if she touched him anywhere, every bit of him would be baby smooth right now, and his lips looked so red and _inviting_ and…

She snooped and had _been_ snooping to get away from him a little, wine glass in hand. Looked at the spines of his books, and brushed her hand against the softest fabric she'd ever felt, so soft it was _calling_ her to his bed, and pulled a drawer here and there (which made him stiffen, and she stopped pulling out drawers.)

But she FELT him. Felt him hover close, follow her with that polite distance, watching her. He moved through his place silently. Watchful. Intense. Beautiful and dark and that sexy, sexy calm and collected that he always emanated.

She felt him watch her as she brushed her fingers against the soft and pretty cushions, against those sinful dark sheets, watching her reactions like a calm storm in the form of a way too sexy man.

And those sheets were new, goddammit, she could fucking _tell_.

It did stuff to her. He'd bought new sheets. He was expecting things to happen in these sheets, too, she was sure of it. But there he stood, across the room, calmly watching her.

Kind of like he always had, even back when they were both teenagers and she felt his gaze prickling on her skin. Back when he was already so calm and collected and watching her like he was years wiser than her when he was just a prickly teen himself.

He'd always had it together. Always. Always that calm, sophisticated, collected man even when he was just a boy.

She was years older now than he was when they first met, and while she felt like an imposter in an adult's skin, he'd lived this way for years. Crystal wine glasses, fancy book spines, tidy big-people apartment.

No moons-and-bunnies comforters here. Instead sexy blue velvet the color of his stupid sexy eyes.

The words rushed out of her mouth almost uncontrolled.

"I don't think I've ever met anyone as independant and intimidating as you," she murmured towards a book called Basic Dictionary of Ancient Babylonian Language.

"What?"

She ducked a little, shot him a sheepish shrug. He looked at her as if he was expecting her to elaborate, and she'd talked herself into a corner.

"You seem like you got it all figured out. The poster child of someone who doesn't need anyone else in the world. You got this," she said, and he frowned.

She shrugged uncomfortably again, averted her eyes, fixed them on his big-people shelf.

"You know," she murmured her confession towards his books. "Whenever Mina-P is away for a job for a longer time, I still go and stay at my parent's house."

She'd felt him more than heard him come up next to her, felt his eyes on her.

"Why?" he asked in a quiet voice.

She flicked her eyes up at him only briefly. Somehow this line of conversation felt more naked than the option of getting naked.

"It feels too lonely in our apartment without her," she confessed. "Oppressing. I don't have this adult thing as figured out as you have."

She tapped the tip of her index finger rhymically along the edges of his book spines. Tap, tap, tap.

He exhaled slowly next to her.

"Usagi…"

He was so close to her now that she had to look up, and it did things to her insides.

He _smelled_ so fucking _good_ …

She licked her lips.

He leaned down towards her a little, his eyes fixed on hers, his shiny, smooth hair falling into his eyes.

"Sit down with me?" he breathed.

Her eyes jumped to his couch behind her and she swallowed. "...right."

She didn't move, though, and his dark eyes were unreadable as always but so close and his _hair_ and…

He clinked his glass with hers, looking so intently into her eyes, and the sound clinged high through the room with a little wave of an echo.

She swallowed, and he just stood there too, and took a small sip of his wine but his eyes didn't leave hers. His lips got stained with the deep red of the wine just that little bit and she felt the all-consuming urge to lean forward and kiss it away, suck it right off him, but she didn't.

"What do you want to do tonight, Usagi?" he asked, and he was so close to her she could feel his breath on her face as she spoke.

She found herself on her tiptoes leaning up towards his lips almost involuntarily, found her gaze fixed to his lips.

"...I want to sleep with you," she whispered, and his lips parted slightly under her gaze, that little red stain still visible and so, so, so enticing.

But his look didn't change. And he didn't lean down to meet her and she didn't urge him to. Then he licked his lips, and they quirked into a small half smile.

"Maybe not so fast," he hushed down at her, and she felt her blush spread once more and she settled back on her heels and finally, finally stepped towards the couch and sat.

"...right," she mumbled, settling against the soft cushions and folding her hands in her lap primly. "Sorry. We haven't even... we haven't even touched."

He remained silent, but sat down next to her. Yet then he leaned forward and took her glass and placed both on his coffee table and she couldn't help but hold her breath.

But then he didn't do anything. He just sat there, saying nothing, watching her with those unreadable eyes.

"I really want to touch you..." she said eventually.

His look didn't change. Not at all. But he moved his hands, both of them simultaneously flipping out at the wrists, palms up towards her and resting on his thighs and knees, eyes on her all the while.

"Then touch me," he said, expression unreadable.

* * *

"Wait, wait, wait," Minako interrupted, incredulously. "Just his hand? You're not seriously such a wreck over _just his hands_?"

Usagi let herself fall forward to collapse back into her comforter and squeak into it. The sound was somewhere between a dying animal and a scream of exasperation.

She was such a fucking mess.

* * *

Usagi hesitated.

He had the audacity to just sit there all calm and whatnot, palms out, one leg folded beneath him as he sat sideways on his couch facing her, just… waiting.

She bit her lip, inhaled through her nose, but then she slipped her hands against his, palms down, and…

This was stupid, this was silly, why was this so intense? It was like one of those mindfulness podcasts Ami had made her listen to when she'd freaked out over finding a job, those weird things that made her taste everything more vividly and feel everything a lot more, and his skin was doing the same, as if she'd never touched anyone's hand before.

And still, he didn't move, not really. Watched her and held his palms out, but he twitched as her fingertips carefully moved to explore his surprisingly soft hands. They were a little cold to the touch, a bit colder than hers, but so, so much softer than she'd anticipated. Long, elegant and tapered fingers that twitched when she ran her own much smaller ones against them, and against the ridges in his palms, the soft skin between his knuckles after she moved his hand over.

Her chic dark-red nail polish looked strangely delicious against his slightly darker skin, his so much larger hands.

She let one go, turned her attention to just one of them, moved her thumb against the side of his hand and then the lines of his palm, following them, stroking softly.

She didn't look up, but she felt him shift, heard his mouth pop open and his lips move, heard him swallow when she ran her index finger against the soft, raised, blue-ish green veins and followed them up to the inside of his wrist and the small wrinkles there.

She was surprised at how his pulse seemed to jump at her, frantic and fast and beating against her fingers when she pressed down against the vein, and she nearly let him go.

She swallowed. Moved her fingers, turned his hand back sideways, and found the soft, hollowed skin just above his wrist bone.

 _How_? How was his skin so _soft_?

It was a moment of insanity that she stooped over and moved her face towards his lap, towards his hand on his thigh – lifting it slightly to brush her cheek against the soft skin on the back of his hand.

He pulled his hand away, startled, and her wide open eyes caught his.

He cleared his throat, she flushed.

With a start she noticed two things: He shifted to cover her view of his lap, AND she noticed the pooling, warm, startling effect this whole thing had on _her_.

She just got aroused by fucking touching his wrist what the fucking hell.

* * *

"No, but seriously – you only touched his WRIST? What did you guys do?!"

"I knooowww," Usagi cried into her comforter, and her bed dipped when Minako crawled in next to her.

Minako plopped herself down next to her and yanked a little at the comforter. "Was it a good wrist?" she asked.

Usagi sighed almost pained. "It was a perfect wrist. Perfect hand. Perfect knuckles. Perfect fingers." And then she groaned. "Ughhhhh, what is wrong with meeee?!"

Minako shrugged. "Were those hands doing fun shit to you at least?"

"Minako!"

Minako threw her hands up in a 'What?!' gesture. "Just saying, if they're so perfect, maybe you should…? Wasn't that the plan?"

Usagi licked her lips, thoughts straying back to his couch, and his hands, and the puff of his lips and how those hands then…

And then she shifted her legs and her eyes widened and she flushed as she met Minako's raised and ever-rising eyebrow.

"So, the _memory_ of his hands does it all on its own, too, yeah?"

Usagi threw the Tux pillow. "Shut up."

Minako threw her the kind of look Usagi found entirely too suggestive, wriggling eyebrows and bright toothy grin and all. "Must be some hands."

The Tux pillow was reclaimed just to be thrown again, but Minako, the traitor, caught it expertly.

"So, did you do more? Ya know, more than fucking _holding hands_?"

Usagi put on her most withering look.

* * *

"Can you touch me too?" she whispered, and shivered under the intense look he gave her as he shifted forward.

And then he was so close she could smell him again.

"Close your eyes," he breathed down towards her.

And she did. It took a few moments until she felt him start, a few moments that stretched like hours and made her anticipation into something she could taste on her tongue.

She wasn't at all surprised that these soft, soft hands of his on her skin caused her whole body to break up in goosebumps when he finally did touch her.

He started with a single finger, his touch so feather-light it glided across her arm. He started on the sensitive inside of her wrist and dragged his finger up, up, up her skin and underneath the sleeve of her blouse, and traced the crease of her elbow slowly, softly.

It was such an innocent touch. An area she'd never consciously felt touched before. And here it suddenly made her inhale sharply through her nose.

He withdrew his hand immediately.

"Not good?" he asked.

His voice was so close—

She shook her head wildly in a no, blinked her eyes open and he was _so close_ —

"No," he said, eyes so blue and so close to her face and so were his _lips_ and—

He was half-kneeling, half-standing over her, one knee on the couch next to her hip, one leg around her and on the floor beside her, straddling the air above her as not to touch but still come close, hands raised away from her and—

"Close your eyes," he said again, a little breathless, and she did.

"I was just surprised," she whispered, but allowed her eyes to flutter shut again.

This time, after she exhaled and waited, his fingers brushed along her chin, soft, gentle strokes that feathered across her face, both his hands cupping her jaw, her cheeks, and against her wine-flushed skin they felt even cooler, and her breath hitched and she tried to hold it because—

She couldn't hold in the little whimper when his thumb brushed along her lower lip, his finger moving her lip along her teeth with softest pressure, the difference in temperature of her lips and his soft skin making her feel like she was on fire.

It was pooling in her. These innocent, innocent touches, and she was burning in his hands.

She didn't want anything more in the world right this moment than for him to lean forward and replace his thumb with his lips. She wanted to moan into his mouth and climb on top of him and eat him whole. Wanted these hands to brush underneath her shirt and rip her apart and make her scream his name.

But then his thumbs moved away from her lips and she whimpered again and she felt his breath exhale against her eyelids, and his thumbs stroke to her jaw and tilt up her chin, craning her neck, as he held her face in both his hands.

He exhaled again. Wine and peppermint and she wanted to taste him so _badly_ —

"You're so beautiful," he hushed towards her, and it _shot_ through her.

She was pretty sure it was the first time in her known Usagi and Mamoru history that he had said something about her appearance to her that wasn't at least in _some_ way an insult and it was _embarrassing_ how much it affected her, how it pooled in her chest and between her legs.

His fingers curled, then. Cool and long and gentle and the backs of his fingers stroked almost tenderly down her throat and she had to swallow under the sensation.

"So absolutely gorgeous," he breathed, barely audible, and his fingers brushed into the neckline of her blouse, tracing the hem.

She didn't dare open her eyes then. Not when he was saying such addicting things she was sure he would never say to her face.

Back to just one finger. And it pulled the hem on her neck just barely, and traced the skin beneath so slowly, just his fingertip burning cool lines across her heated skin.

"You blush all the way down here," he breathed, and this time she whimpered, and cursed herself that she hadn't worn anything with more cleavage.

His fingers were modest. He didn't dip down lower. Just that centimeter that her blouse gave away, and it barely went beneath her collarbone, when she _really_ wanted his hands to explore further.

"Is this ok?" he murmured against her face, and his breath was once again so close she was sure he was watching her face closely.

She nodded hard, frantic.

When he exhaled against her lips, she could have sworn she heard him smile.

And then his fingers traced back up her neck, and behind her ear, and when his finger traced the shell of her ear so fucking _gently_ , she had to bite her lip.

"Good?" he asked.

She nodded mutely, tilted her head and pushed her ear against his hand to get _more_ —

He chuckled.

And then his other hand was there and settled against her blouse and his finger started to trace her collarbone and the little dip between both and—

What the fucking hell _were_ these fucking magic hands?

And then, he just fucking _stopped_ —

She nearly growled when she felt him retreat, felt him sit back down.

When she opened her eyes, he sat there, calm and collected and hands in his lap, as if he'd never moved. Watching her.

She was breathing hard.

Without taking his eyes off her, one of his magic hands reached out and grasped the stem of his fancy wine glass, brought it to his pretty, red lips and took a sip. Then he put it back down.

Still watching her.

"Can I touch you again?" she croaked, giving in, forfeiting in this unspoken little game.

He exhaled slowly, kept quiet for just a moment. Watching, watching, watching.

"… sure," he eventually said, expression such a fucking mystery to her.

But she didn't waste time unlike him, and shot forward and into his personal space and saw his widened pupils and his catching breath. With too confident hands she pulled the collar of his black shirt aside and brushed her closed lips softly against the hollow of his throat, just above his collarbone. His skin jumped towards her as he swallowed hard, and she saw his fingers clench.

But he kept still. Didn't move a muscle.

And so, she got bolder, opened her lips and dipped her tongue against his throat. Just briefly, just barely, and licked her tongue against her lips before tasting him.

He tasted salty, at least a little...and _good_. So, then she stemmed her hand against his thigh to hold herself up and ran her lips oh so softly up the side of his throat, her other hand catching his bicep and his own hand catching her forearm and he held on while she found his pulse point there too.

It was hammering even harder than before and this time she caught her own arousal right away.

His breath exhaled forcefully as her lips wrapped around the skin and she softly sucked, humming against his skin.

It was all a heady, arousing cocktail of nerves and sensation and taste, and she sucked a little harder and felt his hand move from her arm and curl around her wrist, and for a second it felt like he was trying to pull her closer even when his fingers became stiff.

He was holding his breath.

It came out in a giant rush when she detached her lips from his skin with a small pop and left behind a miniscule red mark that directly disappeared again.

His hand flew up to his throat as if to trap the disappearing redness blindly.

She blinked. "Don't worry," she said, still absolutely in his space, practically in his lap. "There's nothing there, it won't leave a mark. It's already gone."

His eyes jumped and for a second she hallucinated a flash of disappointment in them.

But she realized she had a thing for feeling his body react to hers. It wasn't actually possible, but it was as if the feeling of his jumping pulse was now imprinted onto her lips, puckering against the tender skin in an intense, lingering, tactile memory that did things to her that confused her wildly.

But she got off him, mirroring him, and settled back into her corner of the couch and waited.

It was his turn now, and she watched.

But her skin started prickling in pure regret when he just… didn't make his _move_ —

 _Oh no_. Was that not good? Did that feel weird for him? Was she too fast again? She could have _sworn_ he'd—

"Tell me about him," he suddenly said, and all the air whooshed out of her lungs.

The worry must have reflected off her face.

"As much as you feel comfortable with anyway…" he added immediately upon her look.

She felt her heartbeat pick up in entirely different ways than it had before and she really wasn't even sure _why_ …

"…what do you want to know?" she stalled.

He pressed his lips together, his blank mask fell into somewhat of a frown.

He reached out for his glass, took a sip, and didn't set it back down.

"How did you fall in love?" he asked eventually.

She sighed, held his gaze, and reached for her glass as well.

Somehow, it tasted different than before.

"He was my first kiss," she admitted lamely, because what else could she say here? "I was 15 at the time. I guess it never let me go, impressionable teenage minds and all."

But the rest was trailed off a little unsurely, because at the mention of her first kiss, his jaw had gone slack, his features slipping into something… something… off. He'd almost… blanched.

It confused the fuck out of her.

"I... I think I remember your first kiss," he said after a bigger sip and a little while and it confused her even harder.

She sat up a little straighter. " _What_?!"

This time he _really_ blanched. "Well, obviously not like… you know. Obviously, I wasn't THERE but..."

Her eyebrows shot to her hairline.

"You talked about it," he rushed out. "The day afterwards. To your girlfriends. I overheard."

She settled back against the arm of his couch with a slump. "Oh."

He took another bigger sip. "I'm just... surprised it's... It's still the same guy."

She blushed. Shrugged.

And suddenly, for the first time tonight, the silence was uncomfortable, even if still very, very charged.

"How was your first kiss, then?" she blurted out, mostly to fill the silence.

He sighed, but his eyes didn't leave hers, and they were… unsettled.

But he answered.

"It was good," he said quite neutrally. "Very good. Someone I really like a whole lot."

She frowned. "That's nice," she muttered.

"Yeah," he agreed easily.

She didn't know why that made her mood drop.

"But," he continued on, and licked his lips, suddenly more nervous, "the next morning I heard something that made me realise I'd already been in love with someone else long before."

"Oh," she said again, surprised. "That's not so nice."

He swallowed. "Yeah…" he told his wine glass.

But her frown stayed.

"Did you ever get the chance to get a kiss from that girl you were in love with, then?" she blurted, because her mouth was on autopilot tonight apparently.

He gave off the biggest sigh yet, his eyes on her unwavering and intense. "I…. I did, yes," he said. "Kind of..."

Her shoulders dropped. "That's good…" she murmured, without much conviction.

"If you… say so."

* * *

"WAIT?!" Minako yelped. "You didn't even kiss?!"

Usagi groaned the most pitiful of all the groans in all of groan-history into her hands. "No!"

"When are you gonna see him again?!" Minako yelped, absolutely scandalized, as if she was personally affronted by the lack of swapped saliva.

"Tonight," Usagi admitted with a blush. "After I get off my late shift."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand there you go ;) Sorry not sorry for the slow burn. Next up maybe some actual kisses lol. (And more freaking out, let's face it!)
> 
> Reviews are love and my magic writing-motivation-potion! Let me know what you think! Mwah!


	5. Tease

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, on we go, lol? Happy holidays everyone, here's an early gift for you! Thank you so much for everyone who is supporting me in this silly, self-indulgent, sexy endeavor haha! I hope you enjoy this installment of it, too ;)
> 
> And biggest thanks as always to my hero of a beta, Uglygreenjacket. This season is absolutely crazy for her, and yet she shovels time aside for me to beta this for me! Thank you so much, love!
> 
> ANYWAY HERE YOU GO!

* * *

The Unintentional Seduction of Chiba Mamoru  
Chapter 5: Tease

* * *

A fast, almost crazed sequence of short, high, pressed whimpers escaped his throat between his mutilated lips – he was biting down on his lower lip so hard it hurt, but he was falling apart and couldn't help it. Everything was instinct anymore. Everything was reaction. All reason had left his writhing, panting, whimpering body so long, long ago.

And Usagi was on top of him. Invading him. Teasing him. Playing him. With her tongue at his throat and her fingers ghosting across his nipple and that smirk pressed against his skin and her hand on his cock and—

He was covered in hickeys. Angry, red blotches stretching from the hollows of his hip bones across his sternum up to the hypersensitive, abused skin of his throat, like an expressionist painting drawn with her teeth and her mouth and his wanton moans begging for more, and he wanted to keep every single one forever until nothing was left of him but her marks on his skin, claiming him and only him. He was strung so tight it left him shivering all over and ready to burst and grabbing at the full, supple flesh at her hips and whimpering over the way she shifted above him, over the way her lips created these wet, obscene smacks on him, _with_ him, over the way her hair fell across his oh-so- _very_ -willing body, silky strands tangling and catching against skin slick from exertion and passion and her mouth.

Her voice at the shell of his ear – a purr, a promise, a lewd suggestion wrapped in the most innocent of words and voices. "Can I kiss you somewhere else…?"

His answering sigh was a moan so stretched out and tortured it was embarrassing.

But she didn't hesitate, because Usagi never hesitated, and while he was still wailing that most tortured of all turned on sobs, her hot missile of a tongue already licked a line down from his throat to his navel and lower, and he was so hard and so ready and so _broken_ and he—

There was nothing, _nothing_ at all that he wanted more in the world than he wanted those warm, hot lips wrapped around him in this second—

And then he wasn't himself anymore. Then he was a spectator from outside, and the man underneath her was a man without a face but one he knew to be the one she wanted. It was _his_ chest she'd painted with her teeth, not Mamoru's. It was _his_ cock—

He was so grateful that it was exactly that second that he woke up – angry, feral, shivering, sweating, pulsing, _violently_ hard.

It left him so frustrated he shouted, harsh and obscene and utterly, completely kaput, into his dark and silent apartment and sad, new sheets.

And despite the shift his dream had taken in the last second, his cock was a raging, weeping, trembling mess so hard it hurt him, the tip so sensitive and leaking that the strain against the fabric of his underwear was just too much, and he squeezed his eyes shut and freed it and rubbed, and whimpered just in the same way he had in his dream. The way it twitched insistently, waiting for what his mind apparently had promised him before it all turned into that most familiar of nightmares, was at once typical and absolutely sad.

And so, it took him a mortified while longer - his angry, angry boner apparently as absolutely offended over the last lingering images his brain had provided as it was over the fact that it was just his own boring hand to do the embarrassing honors as fucking always.

He came with Usagi's name on his lips and the memory of her mouth sucking on his throat in his fucking _lap_ the previous night, and this time leaving a hickey so big and purple and bruised it would never, ever fade from his skin.

It was only after he came – thick and creamy and warm and sticky and red-facedly ashamed into his loose pajama bottoms –that the humiliation settled back into his prude bones like a familiar old friend.

He sighed long and hard and hit the back of his head back against his pillow with a thump, his rapidly shrinking cock now limp in his sticky hand.

All this time. All these years, and she was still in love with the same fucking guy. How was he ever going to stand a chance?

In all those years… all these years, pining after her, she'd been pining after _that guy_ … And while he was finally allowed to…to…

Last night he'd…

Yes, he was closer than he'd ever been. Mamoru was exactly where he wanted to be... minus the part where he was the fucking practice.

He was the entree. Not the actual main course. But he really, really, _really_ wanted to be the main course. The desert. He really fucking wanted to be the whole fucking dinner, ok?

But he wasn't. _That guy_ was. Had _always been._

 _That guy_ was the one she was doing this for – _they_ were doing this for… _He'd_ be the one who… He'd _been_ the one who…

He locked his jaw and firmly locked the thought out of his mind. He wouldn't think about it. He wouldn't. He was done obsessing over that kiss, had been done obsessing over it over 4 years ago when he'd first heard of its existence. Done. Absolutely done.

So, later, on his bike and weaving through traffic to bridge the short distance between Azabujuban and Mita to get to his study group meetup, his mind _didn't_ fly back to the fact that on the same day all those years ago that he had kissed Sailor Moon, Usagi had been somewhere kissing her mystery asshole. The same mystery asshole she was trying to get some 'experience' for, now.

What kind of fucking jackass of a cretin did anyone have to _gain experience for_? What kind of undeserving blind dolt would have _Tsukino Usagi_ run after him for _four years_ and not cry to whatever god in gratitude?

What kind of bloody fool would kiss her and not want to keep her? What kind of absolute nimwit _was_ this walnut of a man?

If she could just… if she would just look _his_ way instead? He'd _never_ treat her this way…

He didn't obsess over this. No, no, he didn't. He didn't obsess over it while he was trying to follow his co-eds as they discussed their upcoming lab, didn't obsess over it when they cut their session short to go to the cafeteria together. Didn't let his thoughts shift trying to remember every single detail of that day - that day when he'd finally _understood_. The day after that _night_ – the night of his first kiss, Sailor Moon's warm body against his, her waist in his palms, her lips soft and sweet and rushed and perfect, his heart still pounding from the fact she'd almost been fucking _stabbed_ and the relief that she _hadn't_ and how he'd been over the moon for a night.

Until the next morning. Until he ran into Usagi and she was giggling with her friends and dazedly telling them of her first kiss and how perfect it had been and how she thought she was seriously falling in love – and how the jealousy had hit him so fucking _hard_ he'd barely been able to breathe.

No, he didn't let these thoughts resurface. Didn't think about how her eyes had shone and her hands had clutched at her heart and how breathlessly happy she'd sounded and how he absolutely hadn't been able to take it - and how he'd interrupted their chatter, thrown something atrocious and hurtful at her and left to lock himself in his apartment to hyperventilate.

How it had taken kissing someone else, taken _her_ kissing someone else for him to see that NOTHING stood a chance against the magnetic pull he had to HER. Yes, Sailor Moon was magic. But Usagi was _magnetism_ and nothing compared. And she had been from the start, he'd just been too dense to see it.

He'd spent two nights agonizing over every lost opportunity, and the next time Sailor Moon's transformation triggered his, he'd stared at her lips and admitted to himself that yes, he was praying they were Usagi's instead, was praying there was some sort of way Usagi would see him instead of that guy, that he could prove himself to her in some way - and that this all was probably unfair to Sailor Moon.

And it was _still the same man from that day._ The day that he lost her just when he'd realised how desperately he wanted her.

_How was your first kiss then?_

Well, apparently the fucking _same day as yours._

He also didn't obsess over it when sitting on the JR back to Shinjuku to catch his afternoon class, didn't dwell on the fact that the look she had in her eyes when she talked about him yesterday was still almost the same as _that_ day, and how he still, even when he now had the chance to…to…

He still didn't stand a chance. He wasn't dinner. He was so close, closer than ever before, and never felt farther away.

The same shithead that had stolen her away when he had been too stupid to see what had been right in front of him was the one he was now attempting to teach her to say 'I love you' to… and how to fucking _please_ him.

And apparently that prick didn't even _want her._

It made him so furious it must have shown on his face – the person who'd carelessly sat down next to him in class changed seats midway through the lecture.

It was during a slide about common diagnostic errors in patients with pulmonary symptoms that Mamoru decided that this blockhead did not deserve her. That Mamoru had all the right to try and steal her away from someone too foolish to see the gift right in front of him, to see _her_ right in front of him. That he was doing her a favor – he didn't _want_ her to feel what he felt. He didn't want her to be in an unrequited love for almost as long as he had been. These things _sucked_.

And what a favorable side effect that both their suffering would end should he succeed.

He would rock Usagi's fucking world and make her fall in love with him instead.

That simpleton might have been her first kiss. But Mamoru would make sure to be her _best_ kiss.

That schmuck might have been her first kiss, but Mamoru would be her _first_ _time_ , he'd make sure of it, and he'd make it unforgettable for her, he fucking _would_.

He wanted to ruin that guy for her. He wanted to ruin every other man for her she might ever want to be with that wasn't him. He wanted to be the one she would measure everything and everyone against and he wanted everyone to fall short in comparison.

Fuck first. Mamoru would be _last_.

And so, he might have been obsessing just a little when he angrily punched into his phone to pick through his Spotify account to listen to his British podcast ladies discussing their 'most memorable snogs' on his way back home. Might have been obsessing just a smidgeon of a bit with his toothbrush furiously working in his mouth, glaring at his reflection in his bathroom mirror.

Just a tiny, little bit. Not worth mentioning at all - and didn't obsess over it _that_ much when he was staring right at Usagi's lips, door yanked wide open later that night as she stood there looking up at him, and those luscious, plump lips called to him like nothing ever had in his life.

If Mamoru kissed her well enough, _surely_ she would forget about that ass's lips on hers and remember his instead, right?

"Hi," she said - her sweet voice uncharacteristically timid, holding up a new bottle of wine, eyes fixed on his.

"Hi," he breathed back and lost himself to staring.

It would be so easy. It would be so easy to reach out and crush her to him. Her teeth ran ever so slightly along her bottom lip and it pulled at every fibre of him, calling out to him like his thundering heartbeat in his ears - it would be so, so easy.

He could reach out, pull her to him by the waist, lift her straight to his mouth, open up and taste her. He could be groaning against her tongue right now, taste that lower lip for himself, and never let her go.

He could.

* * *

She was half an hour late again and it really didn't make any of this easier.

All day she'd obsessed over this. She was a wreck at home and she was a wreck at work and what the fuck was this? This was supposed to be easy and fun and here she was staring at a green door as if she was standing in front of Tuxedo Mask's, and this was really not what this was actually about.

But everytime she closed her eyes she felt his fingers brush along her collar, and stroking the shell of her ear, and that wide-eyed look as he hovered above her when she'd dared to open her eyes - and how was this the single most erotic experience she'd ever had when it was just fingerpads in innocent, innocent places?

She wanted the places he touched to get a little less innocent so badly she wanted to sob.

But she supposed this was the plan, right? Have some fun. Experience things she'd waited for with someone she desired without waiting for something that might never be. And well, she was _certainly_ experiencing things she hadn't before, here...

She'd had to tell herself to breathe deeply before she lifted her knuckles to knock at his door, and tugged a little at her open collar.

Jeeze, she was so fucking desperate.

But then there he was. Tall and intense and that fucking _stupidly_ beautiful man was so fucking _unfair-_

"Hi," he parrotted back and then he stared. Didn't move. It made her heart pick up right where it had left off distracting her all fucking day and she swore she could feel it on her skin, and she wasn't even inside the bloody apartment this time.

His eyes were friggin _glued_ to her lips and she swore when she licked her lower lip self-consciously his eyes _flashed_ and-

God. What would she give to be yanked into those arms right about now. To get pressed back against this door from the inside with his tongue invading her mouth, frantic and fast and impatient, and his hands pressing into her ass and his whole body doing what his eyes on her felt like - pressing dark and intense and half lidded into her. Watching her, always, always watching her.

She wanted to bite these lips. She wanted to devour this mouth. This man.

She wanted to be kissed by this guy so fucking desperately it turned her mind into fucking mush, and really, it was totally unfair. This was supposed to be very, very casual after all, and here her horny body was screaming to be taken right at the fucking door.

At the very least, to be kissed.

She bet he kissed very, very well.

But he didn't kiss her. Those dark, hooded eyes didn't move away from her, but he didn't kiss her.

She slipped out of her sexy pumps that she'd obsessed over whether or not to wear the whole day, the ones that looked super chic to those pants and made her butt pop out... but he didn't even look down. Instead his eyes were on her lips, and he didn't step out of her way, and so she stepped up, closer, moving into his personal space because he really didn't give her any room to enter, and looked up.

He was breathing deeply, his mouth popping open as he exhaled and his lips trembling just so slightly, and she had to bite her lip again.

His eyes reacted, tightened, fixed to her lips, and when his hand reached up to cup her chin, his thumb stroking her lip exactly in the way he had last night without a further word, her heart started hammering harder than she thought it ever had before, not a single youma ever having reached that same intensity.

He did it so fucking slowly, his eyes following his thumb exactly, never straying up to catch her eyes, and it made her whole chest flare out in want.

Please, _please_ fucking _please_!

"How would you like to be kissed?" he asked her lips.

It shot through her, down her spine and her skin and her very veins and she found the sentence _pulsing_ in her lips in answer - waiting, wanting, eyes wide. _Yes!_

She licked her lips.

"What?" she mumbled stupidly, her brain giving out, her eyes rendered useless and staring back at _his_ lips just the same.

His lips were curved so sensually. They were so plump and pink and smooth, and they moved in a way that made her throb when he talked.

"If I kissed you," he said, voice low and dark and rumbling. "How would you like to be kissed?"

He'd moved closer, bent down towards her, invading her space in a way that she would have fallen back down the step into his genkan if she'd so much as leant back, and she could feel his breath on her own trembling lips and taste it, and her brain was short-circuiting. She was wetting her lips, helplessly staring at his mouth.

"I want to be surprised," she managed to press out, heart pounding to the sight of her breath blowing against his lips.

"And?" he rumbled.

"I want to be devoured," she whispered like a confession, her toes cramping in the way she found herself stretched out towards his mouth and she hadn't even noticed she was doing it.

He moved even closer and she swore her heart was going into cardiac arrest it was beating so fucking hard, the seconds pounding in her ears as he moved his lips closer to hers, his eyes half-lidded and almost black, and _shit_ had she never wanted a kiss from anyone this fucking _badly-_

"Good to know," he mouthed a millimeter away from the sensitive skin, and his eyes, for the first time, strayed from her lips and looked her in the eyes, close and intense and pitch-black. ...And then he fucking straightened up and let go of her and she kind of wanted to scream.

No! _No_!

He remained looming over her and yet he took a single modest step away from her - and she _felt_ it, it pulled her chest forward and closer as if she was a magnet attached to him and it _propelled_ her forward and _no_!

"Where do you want to start today?" he asked her, his eyes jumping between both of hers, his face that unreadable mask that looked ever so slightly stern and had no business both frustrating her so much and turning her on like that.

_How about getting fucking kissed by you?!_

She wanted to scream. She wanted to pull at his shirt and attack, wanted to press him against the wall and just take these fucking lips, and she felt it shiver down her fingers, itching, twitching.

She didn't answer, breathed harshly, and almost jumped when his knuckles brushed down the rolled up sleeve of her chic little work blazer and reached her skin, one elegant, tapered, sinfully skilled finger brushing down her underarm down to her wrist and hand, while his eyes never left hers.

Her skin broke out in goosebumps before he reached his target, uncurled her fingers from the too tight grip and pried the bottle of wine from her stronghold on it.

She wasn't even consciously aware of following him. Her legs just propelled her forward and after him, as if she was tied to him by some invisible string, her eyes on his lips, his hands, the way that dark hair fell into his eyes, the way those black, tight jeans hugged his ass.

To the sound of glass on cherry wood, the bottle found its untouched twin and was deposited next to the one they'd never opened the other night.

And while he opened one and poured, this time, the glasses didn't leave the counter. With a deep breath, he found her eyes, and they stood there.

Watching.

She felt a little frozen when he moved behind her, and felt all air leave her when he pressed against her, his warmth covering her back, her front pushing into the counter, hands catching on cherry wood, and it all rushed to pool warm and arousing and intoxicating in the very nerve endings of every single patch of her skin.

She was shivering by the time his hands brushed her hair aside - slowly, his fingers catching in the strands - and along the collar of her blazer with just his index fingers brushing in and stroking against the silk of her blouse and then inside only to brush it slowly down her arms.

It fell with a thud, a button clinking against floor tiles.

"Would you like to continue on where we left off, Usako?" he breathed against her neck, his nose at her throat and she could feel the baby hairs on her neck stand on end in pure anticipation, and she nodded.

* * *

And then he'd chickened out.

She'd been right there. The look in her eyes-

She'd wanted him to do something. And all he did was… more of the same. He'd been researching this for days now and he just… he hadn't even dared to …

He'd fucked it up. This wasn't what she'd asked him for.

It had been torturing him for days now, turning him into personified irritation.

He sighed. Tried to shut it out, rather fruitlessly, and walked through the automatic doors of the small 24h supermarket chain closest to his apartment in a cloud of bitter, dissappointed vexation, cursing himself and grumbling under his breath while his British podcast ladies told him a thing or fifteen about performance anxiety during sexual encounters and how it fucked everything up and hating them a little for being too right on too many things when he hadn't even _gotten_ to the sex part yet.

It had been two days. When she left that night they hadn't arranged a third night and was this it? Had he blown it?

She didn't know yet when she'd be free again that week, she'd said. Some deadline at work, something for a patch that needed to be released on schedule. That she'd know more on Thursday.

Well, it was Thursday. And he hadn't heard from her. And it all sounded like she was letting him off gently.

He stalked the aisles like the most furious kind of youma, frightening some people around him with his intense glare as he carelessly threw his purchases into his basket, and later on the black conveyor belt at the till, breathing hard and glaring all the while.

And apparently, his British ladies had story after story after story of people freezing up before and during sex. Of people too excited to get it up, of people doing shit they didn't want to do, of people missing out because they didn't do things they wanted to do, and it all hit too close to home.

Could he fucking _get_ any more pathetic?

Well, turns out he could, because when he looked up, Usagi was standing right behind him at the till, wide-eyed and ethereal and shocked.

He ripped his headphones from his ears, heart hammering, heat rushing into his face. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Had she heard? Was his phone set too loud? Did she see the title of the podcast on his phone? Did she _know_?

 _Fuck_.

* * *

Usagi had a good life. Sure, she was fighting the Dark Kingdom on the side, and she was pining away after a man that was completely unavailable to her, and stuff, but… on the whole? She had a job she loved and was really good at and _no one_ had ever believed she'd find _that_. She had wonderful friends and she was headed to her favorite supermarket before she went home to pig out with some of said friends and really… really she had no business being worked up like that and why did Minako ever have that stupid, bloody moronic idea.

"He still didn't kiss you?!" Rei whisper-shouted in the snack aisle.

Usagi groaned - absolutely unrelated of the fact that Rei shouldn't actually know anything about a 'still', but she knew better than to think Minako hadn't broadcasted her budding none-sex-life to the girls the second Usagi had gone off to work and Minako had still had the rest of her day off.

"I'm being burned alive, Rei. I'm…" she rubbed a hand across her face, looked around with a blush blooming on her cheeks, she _felt_ it-

"Fuck, I can't even… the fucking _dreams_ I'm having they're so _filthy,_ I _can't…_ "

She grabbed a bag of avocado flavored chips and basically punched it into her basket, not willing to look if anyone heard her or not, and moved on to the chocolates.

She did peek around before confessing the following, though.

"Rei. I want to get fucked so hard I've never wanted _anything as much ever in my life_."

Rei rolled her eyes, throwing her one of those 'don't be so over-dramatic'-looks, or maybe one of those, 'bitch please, I've seen you pine for four years'-looks that didn't take her too seriously.

"And he hasn't even kissed me," Usagi repeated incredulously.

"Do you think he's… I don't know," Rei trailed off, her voice that hue that implicated she was at a loss, too. "Playing you? As in, working you up intentionally?"

Yup, that's what Usagi thought, too. And really, it fit, right? She played right into his hands asking him to have sex and now… That arrogant smug bastard, thinking he could turn her to mush with just … _this_.

And it was fucking working, that jerk. UGH.

"He hasn't even… I'm not even… he touched through clothes only. Never going beneath, and I swear I…" she whispered near the freezers.

"He's totally teasing you."

"I KNOW!" Usagi shouted too loud and then ducked. "I _know_ ," she repeated in that way that sounded like she was a spy in front of the ice cream shelves. "And it's working so embarrassingly well! I-"

She sighed, dumped a family packet of Choco Monaka Jumbo ice cream waffles into her basket. "God, Rei, this is worse than the Tux dreams."

Rei threw her a look. "Oh, I can tell."

She threw a glower right back and trodded down to sort herself into the short queue at the tills with falling shoulders.

"And… I don't even know when I'll see him again?" she whispered in a rage.

Rei stiffened beside her, hit her elbow, but she prattled on.

"Rei, I'd have sex with him right here in the fucking cleaning product aisle. I'd strip down naked next to the toilet paper, and I wouldn't fucking _care_ if he just fucking _rammed_ into me and I-"

"Usagi!" Rei hissed, hitting harder, and Usagi finally saw what her friend had been trying to save her from.

Mamoru. Mamoru right in front of her. Looking up wide-eyed and ripping his headphones from his ears and blushing and _god_ she'd just- next to the fact she'd just mentioned she dreamt about Tuxedo Mask in half a sentence, she'd _also_ just announced she wanted Mamoru to pound her in the cleaning product aisle while standing right behind him and _of course_ he'd blush and she-

God, she'd never been so mortified.

Her face felt so hot she was sure she was straight to overheating and melting into embarrassed Usagi-goop. They could get stuff from the cleaning aisle to get her off the shiny hardwood.

Fuck. _Fuck_!

He didn't fare much better than her, looking down at her with a flush so hard she was sure she'd never seen him so red and-

"H-hi," he managed, and she swallowed.

With a start, his eyes flicked beside her and he startled, seeing Rei there as if he hadn't noticed her before.

Wait…

His eyes snapped almost violently back to his basket and he continued filling up the conveyor belt with movements more stilted than she'd ever seen on him and-

Wait, _hadn't_ he heard her?

"Hi…" she mumbled back, utterly confused, and looked back at Rei - who threw her a questioning look she couldn't-

 _Wait_.

Was he being so super awkward because… because…

Well, _sure_ , it was weird seeing him out and about when this was so… fresh and unusual and not like… Oh god. Was this what this was going to be like from now on? Stilted and flushed and relationship status:awkward? Sex buddies (she _wished_ ) by night, pretending to be strangers by day in front of people they both knew? She ran into Mamoru at least once per week, if not even more. He lived in the building right behind exit 4 of the subway station for god's sake. She'd run into this man almost as long as-

Was he _embarrassed_ by her?

It wouldn't be unthinkable. He'd never been very, like, _un-vocal_ about the things he thought about her, threw at her head on a regular basis and-

Shit, was this why he hadn't-

Suddenly, her throat pinched together and she felt like choking. Rei, next to her, apparently was done with the weird atmosphere and started making small talk and really, she wanted the ground to swallow her hole.

"So, how have you been, Mamoru?" Rei said, voice enviably nonchalant, as if Rei _hadn't_ just been listening to Usagi nonstop openly fantasizing about his dick in her for about 20 minutes straight.

Of course he'd not want to be seen with her. They didn't fit. They never had. They were like - they were day and night. Smug brilliance and bubbly naivete. What had she been thinking?

With a coiling gut, she was suddenly absolutely aware of the careful distance he kept to her, the way he absolutely avoided meeting her eyes, the way his voice-

"I'm… I've been good," he croaked, looking at the till and not at them. "It's been quiet the past couple days," he added like a fucking douche.

Right. Because she wasn't exactly quiet.

"Good," Rei said.

"Good," Mamoru parrotted back.

Even his _neck_ was red.

Rei had started unpacking Usagi's basket for her and his eyes flicked to her purchases.

She was never more aware of the differences between the two of them as when her eyes flicked over the contrast of what they were buying sitting side by side on this conveyor belt, separated by a thin strip of a hard plastic divider.

He bought fennel, lentils, sage tea. Hummus and spring onions and cabbage, miso paste and enokitake, all carefully handled and sitting with the barcode up and oriented parallel item to item. Hers was a giant pile of crap. Boxed Meiji chocolate macadamias, an assortment of instant ramen, two half-price bentos for Minako and her for tomorrow because late-hour-discounts, the current limited edition pocky, ice cream, potato chips, cherry lip balm, pads, a six-pack of brightly colored Suntory alcopops, a single banana.

"So... what are you up to tonight?" his stilted voice addressed her banana.

"Watching The Bachelor Japan," Rei answered easily.

And for a second, just a _second_ , his eyes flicked to hers and she absolutely couldn't read them. They were back on the till before she could react.

"Ah," he said, voice thick.

And then he was up, the cashier greeting him in a friendly, bright voice, and Usagi felt a bit like crying.

Rei's elbow in her ribs and insistent head-shaking didn't really help.

Out of the corner of her eye, when it was her turn (and he was done packing his purchases in his black and expensive looking hipster-y backpack because _of course_ he wasn't someone who forgot to bring a bag when grocery shopping), she saw him hesitating. Saw him eye the automatic doors and fidget, as if contemplating whether or not he could flee.

He stayed. Waited up for them.

Right now, she'd kind of rather would have prefered he'd just left.

"So I forgot The Thing," Rei announced once they were outside, and Usagi's eyes widened as she slowly shook her head at her. "Give me those," she tacked on, and reached for Usagi's paper bags (because of course she _wasn't_ someone who remembered to bring bags when grocery shopping).

Usagi wrestled over her bags for about two seconds with Rei giving her the stink eye before she just fucking _left_ her there like a traitor.

"Bye, Mamoru!" Rei called over her shoulder with a flick of her hair and a backward wave.

"...bye," he mumbled, and gripped the strap of his backpack that hung off only one shoulder, and then there they were.

Pitch-black sky, brightly lit and busy street, the red neon supermarket sign of Seijo Ishii Azabujuban illuminating his skin in a slight glow. A salaryman brushed by her somewhat roughly. They were absolutely standing in people's way.

"Listen, Usagi…" he said absolutely awkwardly.

Shit. This was it. He'd heard and he was weirded out and he'd changed his mind and-

She interrupted him. "I'm sorry!" she yelped.

His eyes flashed and finally they were back to looking at each other.

The knuckles around the strap of his backpack were white.

"For what are you-"

But she interrupted again. "I shouldn't have- well, a supermarket aisle would also be _super_ unsanitary and I really didn't mean like- well I did but-"

"Usako…"

He was looking at her as if she'd _eaten_ the cleaning aisle. Absolutely bewildered.

So she prattled on. "And I still, I mean… Clearly you're not comfortable, and if you feel like… I mean, as I said, if you feel this wasn't… if you're…"

" _I'm_ not comfortable?"

"I mean, well, as I said, if you feel like this isn't something you… want to do, then…"

She trailed off with a frustrated sigh, and yanked at one streamer of her hair.

A beat of silence, and then a beat more, and how could this get even _more_ awkward?

His lips parted.

Like the absolute lunatic she was, her gaze flew to them.

"...you said Thursday," he said eventually, weirdly, grip around his backpack strap tightening even harder, and it was her turn to be confused.

"What?"

"Um, your schedule."

Her eyes widened. _Right_. She was supposed to _call_ him, _that's_ what they'd said _._ How could she have forgotten that?

Well, probably because she'd been too busy staring at his butt when they arranged it at his doorstep.

But… did that mean he still _did_ want to...

"Um, yeah. I… I'm free in the evenings for the foreseeable future. No more work emergencies," she nodded, swallowing thickly, heart thundering. "At least I hope so."

He nodded. "Right."

... But… wait. He didn't… what did this mean? Why didn't he…

Her heart beat even faster. Another passerby brushed by her, and she stumbled forward a little, closing a little bit of the distance between them… and she saw his fingers _react_ to that.

"How about…" she started, exhaling a little too harshly. "Are you free tomorrow?" she asked, and his eyes flashed.

"I am," he said, looking down at her.

"...if you still want to…" she trailed off.

"I do."

She blinked.

"Ok," she breathed.

"Ok," he mirrored.

"Right," she said, swallowing, and he said the same too.

Shit was this weird.

And then he turned, and nodded to her in a sort of farewell, and why was it so _weird_ and-

She turned too, and frowned. It was then that she remembered she was mad at him - how _dare_ he be embarrassed to be seen with her in public, she should have- she should-

"Usagi," his voice called, and she whirled back with a storm in her eyes.

With two, three long strides he'd covered the distance between them. There, right in front of her go-to supermarket, and her eyes widened when he didn't _stop-_

One strong hand wound to the back of her head and one gripped her hip and before she could blink, black inky hair fell into _her_ forehead and-

She whimpered into his mouth. Her fingers flew into his shirt, gripping in reflex, and _shit_ , his lips were as soft as she'd thought they would be and then he _opened_ them and his tongue invaded her mouth - and she fell completely against him as he kind of kissed her into bloody nirvana.

Deep, _strong_ , slow, insistent - and she kind of couldn't take it, his hands pressing her to him and she never wanted him to-

He stopped before her brain could follow, his lips detaching from hers with a little pop, hers following after him with a small, dying squeak - here, right in front of Juuban's main shopping road, here where anyone could know them.

Not embarrassed to be seen with her, then…

She licked her lips, she hadn't been _prepared_ , she wanted _more-_

"See you tomorrow," he whispered against her lips, and let her go.

He turned around and left before her brain had the chance to start computing again.

Yup. A very, very good kisser, indeed.

Her heart pounded all the way home and well into the Bachelor, nevermind the Senshi-meeting afterwards that this was actually supposed to be at one point.

(And both Rei and Mako-chan slipped Minako two folded bills. _Some_ friends she had, betting over her.)

* * *

Well, the next night she showed up at his place, she wore as little as she could friggin get away with. The skirt of her dress was as short as she'd worn them back in school, her top a fucking neckholder, and her cardigan shed the second she entered his door along with her flats.

If he was adamant to only touch her over her clothes, she'd give him less to work with.

He stared at her legs rather wide-eyed when she pranced into his home with determination in her eyes.

But he didn't say hi.

Instead, his fingers found her throat. Two of those addicting digits pressing against her jugular, like the weird guy he fucking was, and with a start, she realised he was taking her oh-so-incriminating pulse.

Well, since she was well aware how frantically her heart was beating, she knew what he'd found when he kept so mutely staring into her eyes. And so, she lifted her own hand up, up, up to reach his neck in return, and mirrored the action.

Well, his pulse fucking _hammered_ against her fingers.

It did a lot of crazy things to hers.

He still hadn't said hi when he bent and slipped both hands against her cheeks; when he pressed his mouth to hers and his tongue back into her mouth; when his hands tightened and one moved into her hair and he pressed to move her flush against him, and since _when_ did kissing feel like this?

It was a long, long time until either of them said hi.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, some honest-to-god-fooling around lol! I hope you liked it, and reviews are my favored type of christmas gift if you feel like indulging me ;)
> 
> Anyway, MWAH! 💋 See (read) you soon.


	6. Fooling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi you lovely people! Thank you so, so much for your holiday wishes and your wonderful reviews! I see all of you and I cherish them, and re-read them, and treasure them, and thank you, thank you, thank you! You're the reason why I love this hobby, and hearing from you makes me absolutely happy! So yeah, here you go, I'm sending you into the new year with some very wrecked usamamo foolery, lol!
> 
> My always thanks to my superstar beta Uglygreenjacket – she's on vacation and just literally beta-ed this from me at friggin Disney World.
> 
> Anyway, have one very, very, VERY horny OTP.

* * *

The Unintentional Seduction of Chiba Mamoru  
Chapter 6: Fooling

* * *

Perhaps, Mamoru reckoned, his sole purpose in this world was to kiss this woman. To kiss her over and over until he perished against her mouth.

Really, it was kind of a miracle that this seemed to be fucking _working_.

It was also a miracle that he was so desperately, deliriously enjoying the fuck out of it.

Somewhere along the line of worrying about every possible outcome, this had become fucking winning the lottery and he was a fucking junkie.

Here, in the grey darkness that spread through his apartment from the drumming, rainy morning outside, with a stupid playlist playing in the background and his tacky new fairy lights switched _on_? She was his for now, and he lost himself to her.

What miracle made this happen, again?

He arched his back, moaned visceral, guttural, at the feeling of her tongue moving against his, her hands pulling at his hair so harshly, her body writhing on top of him, burying him further into his couch cushions as she had her way with him, straddling him. And truly, it wouldn't surprise him if he woke up any second.

Her mouth was a drug and he couldn't not drown. The greedy, demanding way her tongue stroked so insistingly against his. The noises she made. The tiny, almost hiccup-y breaths she took right into his mouth when his hands had slowly started to dare to wander over the previous days, always over clothes, always trying to not push too far, trying to be modest– but she'd kept wearing less and less, so modesty was maybe not the best way to describe the way his hands dug into the agonizingly tempting seam where her perfect legs transitioned into perfect, plump butt underneath her short, short skirt.

The way he _dreamt_ of the taste of her lips these days, the way she looked perched above him, looking down so mischieviously as she played him, and he let her because how could he fucking not?

If she decided she wanted him as nothing more than her plaything for the rest of her life, but he would never be able to have more of her? Right now, he felt he'd take it on his knees in gratitude.

Just one more kiss, one more taste of her mouth, one more and one more and one more for the rest of time and he would never want anything more.

(He knew of course that was a lie; he wanted _everything_ – but he was willing to take what he got and fall apart under it and thank her for it. He was a fool. A very, very willing fool.)

His hand grasped one perfect, delicate ankle folded beneath her against his knee, and stroked up the sensitive skin of her leg in light, feathered strokes that he'd learned made her take those delicious, tiny breaths into his mouth and her pulse spike. His hands were big enough to wrap around her calf completely, and he did so with a groan, then spread his fingers to gently stroke the length of it, distracted – and with a yank he pulled it up, up. She lost her perch on him and collapsed against him fully as she fell, and he groaned into her mouth at the delicious, precious weight of her, her knee pressing awkwardly against his shoulder now, her crotch falling against his and it was a little bit like dying and coming alive.

It had been four days since he kissed her in front of a supermarket because he was so terrified it might be his only remaining chance. She'd showed up here ever since to make him dizzy with her tongue.

After that, it had only been two days since he first dared to lightly press his erection against her hip.

He'd been absolutely terrified. Had hesitated literally for an _hour_ after making the decision to at least _try_. It felt so oddly… abrasive an action. Invading. Exhilarating. Pulsing and hard and making his head swim and the loss of his vocal chords – no longer doing what he wanted them to do and _shit_ –

And when she'd ripped her mouth from his and stared at him wide-eyed, he'd thought he'd gone too far – until she pressed back against him in such open wonder and wide, watching eyes before she'd started _writhing_ against him. That day she'd kissed him even harder than she ever had before, and he first got lost in the sensation in a way that he forgot himself, forgot his worries, let go and let her take him wherever the fuck she wanted.

Here, now, she gasped above him, letting go of his lips with a soft, wet smack to throw her head back, eyes squeezed shut, and it went straight to his head, filling him with irrational pride at being able to elicit these kind of _sounds_ from her and _god_ – he thrust up hard, hitting the bulge in his very much covered crotch against her tiny, tiny panties, her tiny skirt so long bunched around her hips. With a movement perhaps too sudden he let go of her smooth, creamy leg and she fell against him again, whimpering in answer as he pushed her hair from one shoulder and attacked her neck. He sucked harder than was strictly necessary, but he _needed_ to mark her.

 _Mine, mine, mine,_ like a possessive asshole, but he couldn't fucking _help_ himself, his lips stayed on her throat sucking and biting and she _mewled_ underneath him, his breath puffing against her skin and delighting in the goosebumps he spread more than he could really fathom. He could feel her heartbeat hammering against his teeth, spurring him on and on and on and it felt like it wanted to all break through his chest and devour what was left of his mind and reason and he would surrender it all with puckered lips and a needy heart.

He kind of lost it when she started to rock against him, drawing his lips back to hers and he had to claw his fingers into the cushioning of his couch and try not to fall apart because he didn't, he _couldn't_ come, he couldn't no matter how hard he was, how much he was floating in this hellish kind of fucking _bliss_ —

That was a leap they hadn't taken yet and he knew if he pushed past it, he'd go back to freaking out. Right now, he was perfectly content riding out this wave of hard, pulsing agony because it was so painfully, addictingly the best thing in the fucking world.

Not that his mind didn't _beg_ him to open his pants, nudge those flimsy cotton panties aside and bury himself inside of her.

The thought was so _dangerous_ , made him twitch so hard he had to take calming breaths.

_I'm on the pill, you know?_

These days, her panties growing wet and damp above him so close to his cock, ruining his pants, the words she'd uttered that first, terrifying night kept vibrating in his mind like a chant, like a lure, like a siren song. (It felt so long ago, how wasn't it even two weeks?)

He wouldn't be able to tell what time it was, and he was afraid he was probably late – if he'd had a single thought left to spare to care. His head was swimming, foggy, doused in want and desire and _her_ and—

He wasn't even supposed to see her today. She had a late shift at work (sometimes she had to work when the gamers were actually online, she'd explained during the weekend between gulps of breaths against his invading mouth on hers).

And yet, this morning, the pressure of her lips still so freshly imprinted and ghosting across his lower lip from last night, she'd just… stood at his door. Slightly damp from the rain and without an umbrella and her chic little work skirt way too short.

Usagi wasn't a morning person. There was a _reason_ she liked to work late and not early, and yet here she was, 8:30 in the morning, mumbling something about if his morning class was cancelled anyway (he'd mentioned it last night) they could use the time.

It was the last real words they'd spoken before she tackled him back to his couch, and kept running her talented, addicting fingers through his shower-damp hair, tugging and pulling and dragging her nails across his scalp to a cacophony of broken sighs coming from somewhere within him and dying on her tongue.

He was pretty sure his hair had dried slightly curled under her insistent attention to it.

He knew this might kick him in the balls in the long run. He'd known that from the start, but right now he couldn't care less if he could just drown in that cocktail of intoxicating hormones some more. He was willing to take the plunge, especially if there was even the slightest chance he might manage to make her as addicted to him as he was to her. What really did he have to lose if he tried?

And oh, he tried.

He took note of every smallest reaction, mindlessly rated her sighs-to-moans on a mental scale from one to ten that was almost automatic in his mind by now, and when she was gone, he'd write it all down. He let his fingers wander and experiment and tried to discover her sweet spots one after one.

Winners so far were the sensitive skin at the back of her knees, the thin blue veins at the inside of her wrists, her ears, her whole throat from the back of it down to her decolletage, and he coveted the knowledge like the most important he'd ever learned. She liked kisses to be alternating between deep-and-passionate and light, soft brushes of lips. Gently biting her lower lip and slightly pulling at it with his teeth had the best effect on her only when used very, very sparsely.

And apparently, she liked to be on top – or pressed against something solid. (He wondered if he counted as something solid.)

He didn't mind that one at all. The sight of her on top of him, so sensually rocking against his lap, the streamers of her golden hair falling around them, seductive blue eyes dark and so fucking _expressive_ , lips trembling so _debauched_ and so _swollen_ —

If she'd never visit him again, he would dream of this sight until he no longer breathed.

He was still nervous. Starting out he always was, every time. But there was this point now where the world could collapse around them and he'd just whimper and kiss her more, his mind so thick and lost and comatose from her kisses, it was hard to remember any of his worries, hard not to just surrender and react.

She was teaching him that very well. She was teaching him a whole damn lot and he hoped it didn't show – he was supposed to be the teacher after all.

But god the way she REACTED. The way this was WORKING. The moans, the way she bit her lip, the way it egged him on like nothing else ever had when she was turning into mush by what he fucking did, even when he had no idea what it was, what he was doing most of the time. When she whimpered in his mouth, when she looked at him half-lidded and drowsy and under a spell and it was HIM that did that to HER.

It was all getting to his head and his smug traitor of a mind started to hope that yes – _yes_ , this could fucking work. _Yes_ , he could _maybe_ , perhaps stand a chance.

So, worrying about his performance had slowly bled into getting lost in punch-drunk sensation. Fucking heavenly sensation – even if heaven felt much too chaste a word for this paradise on his tongue.

He pressed his tongue against her collarbone, dipped it into her suprasternal notch and dragged it up and it made her wriggle, her modest work blouse shifting against his T-shirt in a way that rubbed her chest against his and his breath wobbled against her skin.

"Oh, _Mamo-chan_ ," she moaned, and it caused a whimper to escape his throat and press against hers.

It was his phone that broke the spell and at first, he hadn't heard it. It was hard to return his mind to something that wasn't her – he felt like waking from a deep sleep, his mind dragging, fogged up and useless, and she had to repeat her sentence.

"Do you need to get that?" she asked again, lips back against his, muffling the noise.

"Uh," he grunted like a disoriented buffoon and she laughed, two high, short, twinkling sounds, into his mouth and he wanted to swallow the sound and keep it.

It took him two more tries to get his mind to work and by the time he'd fished his traitorous phone from his pocket – no longer ringing but vibrating in short succession to signal an incoming text – he wasn't surprised to see that he was, indeed, late. So late Kobayashi was asking if he should take notes for him again and if Mamoru was _sure_ he was ok?

He stared at the time on his phone as if he tried to will it to move in reverse, so he could stay pinned underneath her.

But the spell was broken. She needed to go to work, too, and the blush was back on her face as well as his.

For the intimate way he knew her tonsils by now, they were still helplessly awkward whenever his mouth wasn't directly attached to hers.

He begged her to wait quite breathlessly, and she blushed when he murmured he needed to change, eyes straying to the still so evident and quite messed up tent in his pants that he at least no longer tried to hide – mostly because it caused sighs somewhere on the middle of his mental scale when she saw it, and her cheeks to turn that delightful shade of pink as her lips parted.

He rummaged quickly in his dresser and disappeared into his bathroom to change – something he would never do if it weren't for the fact the only other choice was to change in the same room that she was currently still in.

At least it gave him the chance to splash himself with ice cold water.

When he emerged a few minutes later, he was dressed in rather tight navy slacks and a brown leather belt, a white T-shirt, and a lack of boner.

But the sight that met him changed the latter very fast once more, and he cursed.

She startled, and he cursed again, and whirled around, blushing.

Usagi had been dragging a pink pair of fresh underwear up her legs to tuck underneath her skirt.

"I didn't see anything!" he cried into his hallway, hands in his hair (slightly wavy now, his bathroom mirror had confirmed, and hopelessly, untamably tousled), and he heard her exhale and then chuckle.

"Um…" she said, and he carefully turned back around. She held a piece of fabric in her hand – white. The panties that had been rubbing against him for the past 3 or so hours.

The thought made his blood spike and travel to where he really didn't need it anymore and he exhaled harshly.

"Can I—" she was blushing heavily, avoiding his eyes even through a sheepish shrug. "Can I leave them here and get them tonight?"

"O-of course," he croaked.

He stupidly almost didn't move out of her way when she padded those beautiful bare feet with those pink polished toes towards him – no, not him, to the bathroom. He'd almost leaned down towards her again until he got his mistake – and almost _jumped_ aside.

She took a little while in there. Enough for him to breathe harshly and concentrate on the heavy thrum of the rain against his balcony door to convince his cock to calm down and play nice (it was decidedly difficult these days – it was pretty justifiably angry with him lately after all. Always so excited, never allowed to finish – at least not until she was long gone, and he stared at his ceiling and willed her image back up.)

He clutched at his only umbrella and pursed his lips until she emerged, rummaging through her ridiculously and endearingly colorful handbag and pushing hair behind her ear too much.

It was better when they exited the apartment, his chest flaring up a little as she flushed when she eyed his blazer (it was new. It was supposed to look good with a white T-shirt. His British podcast ladies said it didn't hurt to invest a little in looking a bit 'dishy'.) And once out the door, she flushed even more when he wordlessly opened up his umbrella and held it up over her, rain pitter-pattering onto it heavily immediately.

She bit her lip a little and looked up and it did that funny thing to his heart. Unable to help himself, when she stepped closer to him, he pulled her into his side completely, moving the umbrella to cover both of them.

It all had that curious effect that umbrellas so often had - creating a small tiny sheltered world where sound was a bit distorted and heightened and color changed and shut everything out a little bit from this wall of water the world had suddenly become. Just that this time he was in this bubble with her.

Her answering grin was bright and held his eyes, before she quickly looked away, yet grabbed both her hands around his arm.

She did that sometimes - looking up in bright intensity and looking away. He'd come to the conclusion a few days ago, finally noticing a pattern, that she seemed to have a thing for his glasses… maybe? At least she kept glancing up and then flushing and looking away a bit more quickly.

Of course, he didn't actually have to take the Namboku line and they were both well aware of it and didn't mention it. To get to Shinjuku, he would have been able to take the Toei Oedo line straight there without having to transfer anywhere. But _she_ needed to take the Namboku line and later the Marunouchi line to get to Ikebukuro, and well, while it was a giant detour, it _did_ go over (the wrong end of) Shinjuku, since all roads led to Rome.

And yes, he was already hopelessly late, but it _did_ give him an additional half hour spent in her proximity, riding four sets of escalators total standing too close to her, before he arrived too soon and she stayed on for a few more stations.

He spent the stolen minutes mostly mute – standing behind her in the crowded train, his heart jumping when she nonchalantly pressed her back against his chest when the space grew more limited as more and more people got on in Roppongi. Revelled in the way she moved with him almost familiarly, in the way he knew the red blotches on her skin underneath her light scarf and blouse were _his_ , and in the way his breath stirred her hair as he helplessly looked down at the top of her head.

It was on the Marunouchi line, two stops before he got off, that he noticed he was stroking his thumb against the impossibly smooth side of her hand – he'd only noticed he was doing it when she started stroking back.

And when his stop was announced and he shifted in front of her, her eyes were wide and followed his, and she licked her lips and he licked his.

His heart had thudded all the way to his class over the way her breath had hitched and her nod had been too fast when he'd whispered a hushed "See you later?" against her ear and then kissed it.

He'd thrust his umbrella into her hands in the last moment, but he hadn't dared to look back at her — afraid to find out whether her eyes had followed him out or not.

He still wondered if she had, when, outside, he stepped into the pouring rain.

* * *

The first time she'd seen him again after she'd spend a night making out with him had surprisingly been the most uncomfortable.

The wrist thing had been _nothing_ compared to those lips, and it strung her so tight, it kind of wrecked her. She hadn't slept that night. She'd wanted more and for a second there, it had scared her.

Yes, she had the hots for this man. There was absolutely no denying this, she was a horny wreck for him. He was her guilty pleasure. A sexy fantasy she indulged in. An adventure. She'd dreamt about him forever now. She was so horny for him she felt like screaming (or, ya know, fucking). She knew this. She'd probably always known this. But _this_? This was… more than she'd anticipated, all of this, and it pulled at her in a way that simply destroyed her a little bit.

This was so many ways beyond 'getting some experience' with someone she found hella attractive.

And so, even when nothing could have made her _not_ show up after getting the make-out session of her fucking _life_ – she was such a mess even he had noticed.

"Untense," he'd pretty much ordered, detaching his lips from hers audibly, frowning at her.

He was so close, his eyes so fucking _blue_ , and this couch was quicksand.

He ghosted his fingers over her shoulders – bare except for the tiny, tiny straps of her camisole, his fingers slightly trembling and barely touching and still _burning_ her, and she tensed even more in anticipation as he watched her skin where he touched so carefully.

Still, what came out her mouth was a stupid, uncooperative "What?" – as if she had no clue what he meant.

He threw her a look and those eyes pierced through her.

"Untense," he repeated rather sternly. And then he dragged a single finger along her skin. "Your shoulders," he said, stroking gently along one collarbone, then up her throat, and she moved her face to allow for his movements with a sigh. He smiled that quick, arrogant half-smile but it was gone before she could blink.

"Your jaw," he continued, his finger gliding gently, slowly from her chin to her temple and yes, she noticed how harshly she was gnashing her teeth together and made her jaw slacken under his touch with another sigh.

It earned her another of those quick, sexy smiles. His finger moved to the furrowed bridge of her nose and rubbed, intention clear now even if he didn't announce her tense areas anymore, and only when she'd relaxed her face, he followed her left eyebrow, pressing lightly. He was entirely too skilled with his fingers, and how much pressure or lack of felt exactly right. She bit her lip.

"Ah, ah, ah," he breathed against her face, his other hand quick to reach for her chin, his thumb pressing until she freed her lip. "That's tensing," he scolded, and brushed his thumb across her lower lip, following the movement with his eye and the whole thing made her shudder even harder.

He noticed. Another of those smug smiles.

Both his hands moved to her cheeks, to her ears, fingers spreading into her hair and his fingers curling against her scalp with just that slight pressure, just that slight lift, it made her involuntarily moan.

Another smile.

These smiles were kind of burned into her brain and turned her on way too easily.

One hand left her hair, moved back to the furrow between her brows and pressed. "You're frowning again," he admonished.

How did he expect her to not be tense if he was so fucking sexy?

"Why does it matter if I do?"

He shrugged, then pressed his lips together in that way that didn't quite look _untense_ either. "Someone told me so," he said after a beat of silence and it sounded a bit like a confession.

Something flared in her gut and she decided she really, really, _really_ did not want to know who else he'd done this with – who had taught _him_.

"Besides," he hurried to say, shifting on the couch in front of her, his knees sliding closer towards her, pressing against her thighs, and his other hand was back against her chin, lifting her up.

He was leaning down, his eyes at her lips, his words to her mouth. "How do you expect to feel anything when you harden yourself against touch?"

She refrained the urge to snort but it was hard. "Oh, I feel _plenty_ , believe me."

He rolled his eyes but pressed his finger back into her chin – she allowed it to go slack almost automatically.

And then he ran his index finger softly against the line of her now slack jaw, and against the sensitive skin just below. And it _did_ feel like... _more_. An impossible task, since she kind of already felt his touch much too intensely as it was, and it was kind of mind-boggling, and made her breath come a bit puffy.

But she was not giving him the benefit of voicing it.

But he still saw it in her eyes, apparently. The half smile was a quick, impossibly unfair smirk this time and it took all she got to not lock her jaw shut again. She hated it when he was right. She hated it even more when he knew he was right.

But it all flew from her mind when he pressed his thumb back into the dimple underneath her lips and it made her pliant, slack lips pop open, and then moved oh-so-quickly to press his mouth to them.

Well, it kinda fucking felt as if she'd stumbled upon a manual on how to master fucking kissing. How did he do that? Untensing did do one hell of a fucking lot, even if she would never admit it, her lips tingling and moving and melding themselves against his, too slow, too sensuous, too intense, and it all tingled in her fucking blood. She had nothing whatsoever in her might that stopped her whimpers from coming out to flow against his tongue and giving her away.

He'd smirked at her a whole lot with those red, red, kiss-swollen lips and those half-lidded, kiss-drunk eyes of his for the rest of the night, and she forgot to overthink this and just feel.

And so, thinking went out the window and she kept returning for her next fix of him.

Night after night.

They started to run together in her mind. She went through her day just to see him again. Over and over.

"You're unfairly sexy," she'd whimpered into his mouth last night, pinned beneath him and the weight of him was so arousing she needed to press up against him.

His face had lifted from hers, eyes jumping in surprise, framed so prettily by his pretty, pretty hair.

She flushed. She hadn't anticipated to see him react like this. "Oh c'mon," she scolded with an embarrassed roll of her eyes.

Then his smirk returned, and her breath hitched.

It hitched even more when he fucking got off of her – and yet again when he didn't go far, slid to his knees in front of the couch and between her spread legs and her heart racketed into overdrive because what… _what_ …? _Yes!_?

He bit his lip – his bravado slipping for just a moment and it did that from time to time and bounced off her heart, and then the smirk was back once more and it was really all too much and was he going to… was he _finally_ going to…

He brushed his soft, soft, long hand against the inside of her knee and softly, so softly up her legs and up her skirt and when he reached the inside of her thigh and she allowed her legs to be nudged apart like butter with a gasp, practically shooting them open. Too eager. Always, always too eager, and he _saw_ – his shit-eating smile was stretched across his face in a way that was so fucking _arrogant_ —

But hey, he could be as arrogant as he wanted if he pushed those elegant, tapered fingers _finally_ into her weeping cunt.

She'd waited quite some time for that. Dreamt of that for way too long.

Her breath came so harsh she'd felt a bit ridiculous.

"Am I finally winning you over, Odango Atama?" He had the audacity to wink when he dragged his fingers from the inside of her thigh – almost, _almost_ to her panties – to the _outside_ of her thigh.

Her protesting groan was all accusation, and he chuckled in delight, the absolute _jerk_.

Her sigh was a brutal kind of frown. "If you weren't so rude all the time," she glared.

But at this, his features fell a little. His hand stroking much more tentatively down her leg. "I'm not rude, Usako," he breathed down towards her too dimply knees.

She pouted. Tried to be a bit playful, wriggled the leg he was stroking insistently. "You're terribly rude."

But his features fell even more, and she supposed he wasn't speaking about teasing her like this at all.

"I'm really not," he whispered at her legs, eyes lowered, not looking up.

His hand stilled at her knee, merely brushing his thumb slowly against one dimple anymore.

She frowned down at him, sitting up a little, his hand on her knee, his thumb on her skin. "Says the person who once did this giant speech about me not being ladylike and how I'll never find a man because of that," she reminded him. It was supposed to make him smirk, bring the banter back. This was their thing, after all.

But it didn't.

He flinched. And then his face shifted.

"You _aren't_ ladylike," he huffed with a pout.

She snorted. "See?!"

He shook his head, and stroked her knee, and _finally_ looked up again and found her eyes.

She froze under his insistent, _begging_ look. Mamoru on his knees between her legs. Something shining in his eyes she'd never seen on him before and it traveled through her whole body.

"You're so much better than ladylike, Usako," he whispered.

Her mouth popped open in shock.

His hand, the one on her knee, she suddenly noticed, was trembling really, really hard.

She watched him wide-eyed as he swallowed almost… nervously…

And then his hand started moving again. Inside of her knee, inside of her thighs, almost to her pantyline and going on, but his eyes were fixed to hers. Frighteningly intense.

"And in case you're not noticing, there's a very willing man on his knees for you right now," he said, and it carried too much weight.

She couldn't take it. It throbbed in her throat and in her core and grabbed his hand and kissed it.

And then, to his confused eyes, she slipped down off the couch and onto his lap and pressed herself to his crotch as she attacked his mouth and didn't let go for the rest of the night, sinking to the floor on top of him.

He did the whimpering into her mouth for the rest of the night, kept squeezing his eyes shut and cursing at the ceiling over her shoulder when she pushed herself up on her elbows to rock her panties against his erection.

They were all so fucking intense, these nights. She'd gone home on wobbly legs and hadn't been able to hold out – she'd showed up again unscheduled not 9 hours later.

She hadn't known what had gotten into her either, just that she had the late shift and thus the morning off and his mouth was not on hers – and he did not complain when she went to change that.

She was addicted. She was addicted to his weird hot-and-cold cycling between playful, almost proud smugness and that stoic sternness that she was beginning to suspect was nervousness. She was addicted to the way he ordered her to close her eyes, and the way he did it less and less, too, let her see him more and more.

Because what she'd found was most addicting of all: the way he looked at her. Attentive and enthralled and drinking her in like there was nothing else in the world but them and what he did to her and she to him. Watching, always. Always, always watching her.

She'd found it was most distracting and most effective when he did it right against her lips, his eyes jumping to still see all of her.

She'd wanted him to kiss her on the train.

She'd wanted to kiss him back.

When he was out of sight and the train surging to a start, an older woman seated in the disability seats nearby had smiled at her knowingly, mumbling something about young love, and for Usagi to enjoy it. Usagi had been ready to protest, say that it wasn't what it looked like, but the words died in her throat and made her frown. She clutched his umbrella to her chest in a deathgrip, and nearly missed her stop, even though she was standing right by the doors.

At work, she could barely concentrate. Accidently switching results for her user polls and blindly staring at her new character stats. Her eyes kept straying back to the now long dry umbrella underneath her work desk some more.

Everything took her a little longer, her team leader was beginning to be quite irritated, and every quest idea she wrote up these days was way too sexually charged anyway.

She was midway through working on her current storyline that was (at least _originally)_ clearly inspired by one of Nephrite's youmas when she realised what she was doing.

 _Usually_ her characters were a little bit like Tux – flamboyant and over-the-top and recklessly, charmingly, disarmingly heroic. Yet _this_ particular NPC was definitely Mamoru.

She sat back in her desk chair with a huff, tapping her stylus in irritation, and went to get a sugar-rush of a latte.

"I designed a character after you today," she confessed with her tongue still in his mouth, later that day. It was a miracle he even understood her.

He lifted himself up from her only the slightest bit, from the way he pressed her into his bed, just enough to speak but not enough to actually move away from her lips.

"You did?" he mumbled absentmindedly and pressed his lips immediately back to hers.

"Mhmm," she moaned into his mouth.

His lips slipped from her lips to her throat and she bit her lip and clawed her fingers into the fancy fabric covering his shoulder, arching her back to press up into him and he groaned.

"Is he terribly rude?" he breathed against her neck and bit up to her ear – it made her shiver.

"He is," she admitted in a moan.

"Is he 'unfairly sexy'?" His tongue found her ear, tracing the shell, and she arched up at him some more.

"Very," she whimpered.

"What else is he, Usako?" he mumbled, kissing back down her neck, and ran one finger from her collarbone down over her blouse.

"Dangerous," she breathed, chest heaving against his venturing hand. "Very, very dangerous."

Her breath wobbled when he brushed one pebbled nipple through the fabric – he'd never done that before.

And when her eyes flew to his, of course he was already watching her – now propped up on one elbow next to her and following every motion on her face. She whimpered in an almost pained, but definitely painfully aroused way, looking straight into his eyes while his fingers started rolling her nipple through her blouse and then pulled—

She arched her back right off the bed, following his hand as she cried out.

Yeah, he was dangerous. And she was absolutely lost.

* * *

He was slowly being sucked into a maelstrom he really did not know if he'd ever get out again, and he let himself fall into it face-first, willing and jumping and running and grabbing, grabbing, grabbing.

Days. It had been days now. Almost every night. (With the exception of two senshi battles that hadn't seemed to want to _end_ and he'd cursed through all the while and had needed to find feeble texted excuses to postpone that she later never spoke about.) Every night she would show up and now even sometimes in the mornings. Ridden up skirts and straddling his lap, sitting on his erection and rendering him absolutely useless, touching through clothes and kissing her until he was dizzy.

They were moving out of his comfort zone fast and he lusted after it as much as it terrified him.

The nailpolish on her toes was lavender-colored today, and the way her toes had twitched into his green rug when all he did in greeting was kiss her neck was getting to his head and making him bold, and the way they flexed into his sheets even bolder.

His hands in her hair and he felt like he needed to worship, breathed out labored and erratic as he searched out the bobby pins for the first time, kneeling behind her, refraining from pulling them out with his teeth as his fingers dug into her scalp and into the silky, golden strands, and they tumbled down into his hands and contrasted against his charcoal sheets in a way he felt the sudden urge to paint it.

Good god had he fantasized about this a lot. About his fingers in those buns, making them come free beneath his touch, his never-ending obsession with her hair pounding in him, driving him to touch it, smell it, wrap himself in it. And now here she was, in his bed, his hands doing what he'd always wanted. Night and nights he had imagined himself doing just this (and more, his cock whispered to him, twitching hard, reminding him of the nights he'd imagine tugging on her precious, distracting twin streamers of intoxicating hair as he came howling into her mouth).

He whimpered in small puffs of pained arousal, hard and struggled for breath, and slowly ran his hands down her hair, carding his fingers down the strands and watching almost mesmerized.

He almost whined when one of her hands came up to brush it over one shoulder and away from him, but it stuck in his throat when she shifted in his bed to face him.

Her gaze looked absolutely heavy these days as she simply stared right back at him.

But then, for the first time, holding eye contact all the while, she grasped the hem of her ridiculously colorful gaming-print blouse and slowly lifted it over her head.

It was testament to how obsessed he was with her hair that his gaze stopped first at the way she slipped it out of that golden mass of tempting silk and only second to her thin, thin bra.

Her nipples were hard, peeking through the fabric, and he kind of forgot about her hair.

And then she kneeled – eyes still on him and they'd never left even when his had trouble gazing back, instead widening and following the slow journeys of her hands down her own body and moving to the side zipper of her tweed work skirt. The drag of its teeth felt impossibly loud in this silent room that was only illuminated by the fairy lights above the window over this bed.

She opened it, but didn't slip it down her hips.

Instead she waited.

Of course, he knew it was an invitation, and he was breathing harsher by the second. It still took him a few moments, and when he finally moved to his own knees with a jerk and stroked his hands into the thick fabric to drag it down, she moaned at his touch and the slide against her skin almost in relief.

And then it was off, and the skin of her belly was so fucking smooth, and her ass pure perfection, and the sway of her hips making him as dizzy as her kisses could, and he drowned himself in touch—

And then his fingers caught in the waistband of her panties and he woke up, retreating immediately.

She pretty much growled – took his hand and placed it directly over the fabric of her crotch and his voice _whined_ —

They were damp.

"Go on," she begged breathlessly.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a few of you wonderful, wonderful people in my reviews have been asking after the British podcast Mamoru listens to and whether it was real: Yes, definitely, but kind of - they're actually a conglomerate of several podcasts I very, very much approve of. Many, many of which are British and many, many of which are hosted by two women. Instead of listing all of them in the fic individually, I decided on a stylistic mashup of them, as to make my life a little easier in this fic. The topics he listens to are all real podcasts tho.
> 
> The ones that I mashed up the most are these:
> 
> The Hotbed Collective are British ladies who talk about everything from having sex after babies to writing smut, and who also wrote a book focusing on female pleasure that I referenced in chapter 3. (It's called 'More Orgasms Please' and it's amazing!)
> 
> Unexpected Fluids, a sex-positive podcast hosted by a female British sex educator and a youtubing queer Irishman, produced by the BBC Radio 1. Because it's the BBC, they get amazing guests - such as Erika Lust who speaks with them about ethical, feminist and queer-friendly porn, among else!
> 
> Project Pleasure is another British podcast hosted by two ladies aiming to teach you all the things that a good sex ed should have covered but usually doesn't, including engaging experts in the field who give them a debriefing in each episode as they tackle topics from period sex to masculinity.
> 
> Close Encounters is a sensitive British podcast produced by the Guardian where the same sex educator who also works for Unexpected Fluids interviews people about their real life sex and through this covers diverse topics from living as a queer person in a religious environment, vaginismus, polyamory, or living with a micropenis.
> 
> There's also a number of German podcasts that flew into my portrayal. Since many of you don't speak my native language tho obviously, I'll just name a couple: Oh Baby, for two women who work this podcast by testing things systematically out in bed (from thrusting techniques to sex toys) and reporting about their experience of it honestly and frankly; and Paula Kommt, for a podcast (and a related TV series) that sensitively dives into when sex and relationship doesn't work between two people as we want it to, or proves itself quite rocky - and covers topics from adultery to the malusage of dating sites.
> 
> So yeah, these are ones I used for Mamoru, and they're all worth checking out!
> 
> Anyway, as always reviews are MUCH APPRECIATED and make me want to write some more and a little faster! (And also make me want to hug you!) I want to know what you think!
> 
> ALSO, I hope all of you will nicely and very happily get to celebrate into 2020!


	7. Falling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY NEW YEAR GUYS! I ended 2019 with the sweetest comments (also, person from Brooklyn, please don't destroy your furniture on my account xD) and all the LOVE for my readers! Thank you so much to everyone who reaches out to me, you keep me motivated! 2020 will be a crazy year for me going forth and I will definitely be slower writing-wise since I have a 6-day week from now on and VERY little free time, so all the motivation helps!
> 
> My always thanks to my beta, uglygreenjacket, who beta-ed this on an AIRPLANE during her vacation (-end). You're a power woman and my hero.
> 
> Anyway, let's "go on", shall we?

* * *

The Unintentional Seduction of Chiba Mamoru  
Chapter 7: Falling

* * *

Really, Mamoru knew this was getting out of hand. This was all getting very, very dangerous for his heart.

Deep in thought, his shoes clicked on the concrete of his balcony as Tuxedo Mask slipped into Mamoru's apartment through the erratically fluttering curtains. His transformation glimmering around him, he shut the fairy lights above his window off. He'd forgotten to do so when he'd left in haste.

Then, he eyed his sheets.

He knew he had to change them – _way_ sooner rather them later. Reluctantly, he leaned forward to do just that. And then he lifted them to his nose, breathing them in just once more, and didn't.

They smelled like her.

Maybe tomorrow.

* * *

He'd stood corrected. _This_ is what he was meant to be doing. He was meant to make Tsukino Usagi come. Over and over and over again. There was absolutely no doubt about it.

"Go on," she'd begged.

It had shot through his veins and paralyzed his heart and it made him so fucking _hard,_ and yet his blood screamed at him in panic and in want and more _panic_.

Eyes dark and half-lidded, chest falling and rising with her harsh breathing, nipples pebbled underneath softest, most tempting fabric.

Her underwear was the color of powder, matching, and it was wet beneath his palm; and here she was, the woman he'd been dreaming of for years in nothing but her little underwear, kneeling on his bed, knees almost against his own, begging him to pleasure her.

She was the single most erotic sight he'd ever seen, and he knew his wet dreams were now forever changed. It was driving him insane with want – the way she breathed, the way her lower lip trembled slightly under the insistent puffs of breath that escaped her, her _eyes_ and the way they _waited_ for him – and his thumb trembled at the damp spot of her underwear.

He'd frozen. Panic in his eyes as he stared back at her and that begging, thirsty, delirious expression in her gaze.

For a second there, he forgot _everything_ he'd so desperately researched in the past weeks. Circling the clit in orbiting motions, never really touching at first. Layering motions through indirect stimulation via the surrounding skin. Passing by the areas she seemed to enjoy the most with just the occasional indulgence. Shallow stimulation of her opening, finding the right angle that made her eyes pop and her breath become a gasp. Building her up and then starting to pair stimulations. It all went out the window, leaving him a blank, panicked mess.

Until he breathed deeply, once, twice, thrice, and like a mantra, it all returned. Orbiting. Hinting. Passing By. Shallow Touches. Light Touches. V-Strokes. Angling. Looping his motions into a rhythm. Building anticipation. Edging. He could do this. He _could_ —

It was her gasp, her widening eyes, that signaled he'd moved, not any perception of his own paralysed, numb hands.

And yet, it was his middle finger that had started moving. His large hand cupping her precious, frightening mound over the damp fabric, his middle finger tapping against her.

She bit her lip, and her hands moved up to his collar, to the buttons of his shirt.

He shook his head sharply, quick and brief, his eyes never leaving hers as he gazed down at her, and with his free hand he knocked her hands away from his shirt in sudden panic, and she frowned up at him.

He needed to fucking concentrate. Her hands on him just wouldn't do.

His taps turned a bit more insistent, and she breathed a little more harshly, her eyes jumping between both of his and he bit his own lip.

Her sighs were erratic, worked up from his tongue in her mouth for fucking _days_ now, and yet nowhere near the good parts of his scale yet, nevermind the fabulous winner moans.

He started broadening his touches, started circling, moving damp fabric across her skin with stiff fingers he prayed she wouldn't notice the tremble in, hoped to _god_ he'd find the clit—

Her lips parted, her eyes flashed, but the breathing stayed the same.

And so, he moved his hand away.

He sat back on his haunches, sitting with spread knees in front of her kneeling, gasping form, and shifting closer. And when her eyes whipped to his in protest, she was exactly level with his own face, their height difference balanced out like this.

Her hands flew up to clutch at his biceps, digging into the fabric of his sleeves in alarm, and his finger started to trace the seam of her panties lightly – thigh to thigh, up to the seam on her belly and the tiny little bow in the middle, back down to her thigh.

And this time, her breathing picked up. A sort of whine, all accusation, and she bucked her hips at him mutely, once, her knees shifting noisily against his charcoal-colored sheets.

"Please," she whimpered, and it drove straight to his cock – the one he was hellbent to studiously ignore, no matter how painfully it pressed against the strain in his pants.

He needed to concentrate. This was—

This was too important to lose his mind.

Ever so lightly, he dragged one finger along the seam of her panties on her left thigh – and along the sensitive skin in the hollow of it where she parted them even wider for him. Biting the corner of his lip and watching mesmerized, he dipped his finger into the fabric there, just the tip, just inside the seam, stroking coarse blonde hair and skin that radiated warmth.

"Yes," she cried, and clutched his biceps harder.

All he could do was whimper – and retract his hand from her.

She grunted, her grip on his arm momentarily painful.

But his mind prompted him the most important rule all his podcasts had fed him over and over and over.

Communication. It was always better to ask. Sometimes even sexy, they kept saying.

He moved his hand back to cup her sex, started tracing it slowly, lightly, barely through the fabric, and this time she keened.

"Tell me where you like to be touched," he croaked out, a bit too breathlessly, a bit too trembly, and he hoped it wasn't weird.

Her eyes flashed, and focused, as if she was returning from somewhere far, far away, and her fingers twitched against his arms as he slowly, slowly, slowly, dragged a finger up the middle of her panties, pressing, then stopped.

"Higher."

Her voice was little more than breath, her plea so silent he'd have missed it.

He tilted his head, watched her lips tremble, and kept from biting his own lip again.

Not near the clit then, yet. He inched his finger higher up, brushing softly and this time her eyes popped and she took in a sharp breath.

Bingo.

"Circling around? Or tapping right on?" he gasped at her lips, watching her a tad too intensely. "What do you prefer?"

Her eyes had trouble staying focused, strayed off and down to his lips, and her voice was laboured, slurred.

He was taking it as a win.

"Cir— Circles," she gasped back at his lips, ever so slightly puckered.

And he gave in with a light groan and captured them. He kissed her slowly, pressing, dragging, stroking his tongue deep against hers and then detaching from her with the smack of both her lips after just a few moments, and her harsh breath puffing into his open mouth in a slow whine when he let his fingers start to orbit slowly around her clit through the fabric of her powder-colored panties in randomly alternating wide and narrow circles, adjusting pressure and speed to the sounds it elicited from her.

Her whimpers were the best fucking compass.

He couldn't _believe_ this was actually working.

He kissed her again, puckering his lips to press against hers and prying her lips apart with his, and this time she could barely kiss back, her bottom lip messily catching against his as she moaned into his mouth.

And then it was his turn to whimper into her mouth, because one of her hands had snaked down to her panties and pried the crotch panel away with a sudden, yanking motion, pushing it to the side of one thigh, and the pads of his fingers met the slippery, wet skin of her vulva for the first time.

His intake of breath was so sharp he stole the breath from her lips and her eyes jumped open at him, startled.

He exhaled just as harshly into the kiss, eyes wide open now, too.

He was pretty sure his heart had never thudded this hard, this frantic, this deafening. He felt it in the very tips of his fingers, was surprised she didn't feel it too where his fingers sat right against her wet, naked skin.

For a second it was like they hit the pause button if it weren't for the harsh rising and falling of her chest, the soft quiver of her skin under his trembling fingers, the way a soft whine whistled through her exhales.

Until he pressed his fingers back against her, stroked against her shivering flesh, dragged his finger down to collect that addicting, pooling moisture – and there was so _much_ of it – and moved back up to circle slowly, now _directly_ around her clit.

Her whines turned into messy whimpers, pitching and breaking, and it was the sweetest music he had ever heard, her head lolling against his shoulder and his free arm shot around her shoulder blades, his hand grasping her neck, pushing her face even closer to him to steady her.

He switched fingers, experimenting. Used his thumb to do the circling to try out if he could brush down lower simultaneously, and really, he was never so consciously thankful of the fact that he had large hands.

Her whimpers turned even more broken, and he exhaled against her temple. Her hand at her crotch flew up into his hair, yanking, kneading like little kitten kicks he wasn't sure if she was aware of making them, and the fabric of her panties snapped against his wrist, holding it away. He reckoned he was doing something right.

"Please," she whimpered, mouth open against his shoulder, against the crook of his neck, absolutely wrecked, and it shivered down his spine and to his straining cock.

He didn't listen. Kept up the circling of his thumb, the strokes of his fingers clumsy against the _wet_.

_When she begs, you're doing something right. Keep going for a while._

One thing most of his sources heavily agreed on.

"Please," she pleaded into his skin, and her hips bucked up against him.

He brushed his thumb across her clit just once – one side to the other, left to right – and she cried out against his neck, almost too loud against his ear, but he wanted her to do it even louder.

He went back to circling.

"Mamo-chan," she whimpered, and it wrecked _him_ , making him painfully twitch against the zipper of his pants.

"What do you want?" he ground out; circling, circling, circling.

" _Please_ , just—" she cried, breaking off in a deep moan when his thumb flicked back over her clit, pressing, once, right to left, and back to circling.

"What?" he gasped, pressing his cheek against her face.

She bucked her hips against him, hard. His fingers slipped down and he stilled.

" _Inside_."

It was a long drawn out moan she said it in, and it shot bouncing off his brain and stole all his breath. Really, it was actually a huge relief, learning she wanted to be touched there. He'd listened to podcast after podcast explaining that quite many women just _didn't_ , and to hear that she _did_? He had to bite his lip, his own hips bucking almost automatically.

But she noticed, bucked even harder as if to _reach him_ and he had to squeeze his eyes shut.

Eyes still shut, he exhaled, and traced her entrance with the shallowest of circles that had her bury her teeth against his shoulder, press her tongue to him and gurgle out a wrecked moan.

And then he dragged his finger back up, allowed his thumb to resume the circling that worked her up like this.

"No!" she lamented loudly into his shoulder, fingers yanking in his hair and it thrilled him to the core.

Knuckles now. Brushing from her clit down to her entrance and back up, circling clumsily.

" _Please_ ," she cried, and it was half a wail by now.

Tease and Please. Tease and Please. It was a mantra. One of those silly techniques he'd read about in several places. His lifeline to keep this up and the promise it had made him, that she'd be so wrecked by the end of it, she'd want only him. It was everything that kept him from opening his pants, flipping her around, and fucking her into his mattress.

Well, that and his nerves.

Though his painfully weeping cock _definitely_ wanted to.

Tease and Please. Tease and Please. Tease and Please.

He knew he was actually doing it pretty much completely wrong, not following the instructions, not doing it with his cock. And yet… Yet it was fucking _working_.

Back to her entrance. One finger, tracing, skidding, stroking around and around and around.

Her fingers in his hair clutching, yanking. Her voice a broken, garbled mess.

Then he dipped his finger inside.

She muffled a breaking, dying, gurgling moan against his throat and it was on the fucking fabulous end of his scale.

It was never harder to move his hand back up to her clit. Circling, circling, across, circling, and she grunted in protest, starting to writhe against his hand—

Back down. One finger stroking in circles around her opening and how could she possibly get even _wetter_? He dipped it in almost by accident.

She whimpered. He moved his finger into her again, deliberately now. Swirling. Careful. Shallow, shallow. Most nerve endings in the first third, stay shallow.

"Please."

A wet sound now, gurgled and desperate, and it made him answer in a broken moan in return.

He should hold out more. He should build her up more. But he added a second finger and her moan was wrecked and it was so _hard_ to hold out.

Back out, circling around the opening.

"Please." She sounded absolutely tortured, and he gave in with a harsh exhale. _This_ time, he allowed his fingers to go deep.

As if he pushed some sort of invisible button, her head flung back, her mouth at his chin and she was breathing so _hard_ and so—

And then she started moving and he lost control. Almost violently, she pressed her arms against him to hold him in place and bucked her hips, biting her lip and whimpering and fucking herself on his fingers.

He bit down on his own lip so hard it hurt and couldn't do anything but hang on and curl and adjust his angles until she panted the harshest, and hoped for the best. Moved his hand until she was gasping the loudest, moved his thumb up, straining, cramping, but so it hit her clit when she—

And _then_ —

He felt like crying in relief when she stilled, when her toes curled against his sheets and her fingers pinched against his skin and her back arched off him and she held her breath, and her walls spasmed hard around his fingers.

But he remembered to keep moving them at the last second– shallower now, slower now, but helping her to ride it out and oh, she _did_ —

And he watched her fall. And fall and fall and fall.

She collapsed back into the crook of his neck, eyes unfocused, breath shallow and fast and deepening with every intake.

He'd never seen anything as gratifying as this, could not imagine he'd ever find a better pastime in his lifetime than doing _this_ to _her_.

He wanted to do it again. And again. And again.

Desperately, painfully turned on, he slipped his fingers from her panties and the elastic flipped back against her skin with a little snap against her, her head moving in the crook of his neck, gasping puffy, warm breath so fast and labored right against his throat.

He felt like he won the fucking game. He felt on top of the world.

He was painfully, _achingly_ hard.

And his fingers were sticky, and he didn't know what to do with them, and so he rubbed them against his own pant leg.

He refrained the sudden urge to ask her whether it was good or not. He was _trying_ to be smooth after all.

"Shit," she gasped against his neck, and really, he couldn't help it, he couldn't help the purely elated chuckle that escaped his throat in answer, the way his arms flew around her waist, her back, grasping, hugging, stroking, the way he buried his own face in her neck and her smell and _her_ and—

She shifted against him, hugging, clutching, stroking, his hair still imprisoned by her fingers, and if he'd be capable of purring, he would have.

"That was—" she gasped, still trying to get her breathing back to normal, and he tensed in her arms, stilled his hands against naked, smooth, Usagi-skin where he'd been surprisingly absentmindedly and yet much too hyper-awarely stroking it.

What was it?

"That was—" she tried again, voice breathy and labored.

_What was it?_

"Ah shit," she cursed again, slipping down onto her thighs in his arms, forehead hitting his collarbone and he chuckled again, a bit tenser now, a bit more desperately, his heart rate picking up again.

"That was…?" he prompted like a fool, the traitorous words slipping from his tongue without his consent.

It was absolutely stupid, that sudden need for approval, that grasping straw that could mean he might just get to keep her, that he was doing good enough to—

She untangled herself from his arms and he fought the urge to lock his arms around her, to trap her—

He let her go without any fight of course, and she slipped from his arms and bounced against his mattress and it felt like she'd slipped through his fingers, his bruised heart thudding painfully.

And then she turned her face to him, golden hair slipping around her, and her smile was so _sated_ and so—

She looked a bit like a golden angel, unabashed and uninhibited and everything he'd ever wanted, smiling at him like she'd smiled that one time Motoki had announced free milkshakes for her for a day and—

Her breasts were rising up and down – her bra was so _thin_.

She shrugged, cheeks turning pink, eyes flicking down his form and he fought the urge to preen for her. When they flicked back up to him, slow and sensuous, it ripped through his blood and through his spine and into his cock.

"That was certainly different from my vibrator…" she said finally, licking her lips, looking up at him through those half-lidded, sated eyes, and he whimpered.

The image ripped through him, too, of course. _Of course_ , his brain immediately trained _all_ the painfully arousing ways he could imagine her with a _vibrator_ in her and—

But that wasn't an answer. He frowned.

And inhaled sharply through his nose when she flipped herself over and crawled towards him on those glorious, naked limbs, eyeing the still so painful bulge in his pants and—

Oh god.

He tensed, he boiled, he _wanted_ —

But god, was he panicking.

She stopped, kneeling between his spread legs, much like before, just that now her thighs were firmly pressed together, and one hand slowly stroked up the inside seam of his too tight slacks and he nearly choked on his saliva.

She leaned forward.

"Can I…?" she breathed against his ear, and he twitched so hard he nearly creamed his pants from that alone.

His cock screamed _hell yes_ and his mind screamed oh _hell_ no (because he needed more _time_ ), and even though he started trembling and somewhat hyperventilating, his traitorous hands _scrambled_ to undo his belt with a painful snap.

And yes, even when the alarms _blared_ in his head, he straightened up, lifting his hips ever so slightly to _yank_ the zipper down, because— _because_ —

His mind kind of really couldn't compute the fact that Usagi was about to _touch his cock_ with _her_ _hand_.

Because she _wanted to_.

Except it could, and he was so tense, so freaked out, this could only end in embarrassing disaster for him either way.

And yet, when she tilted her head, golden silk slipping over her shoulder and onto his knee, and she dragged a single finger up towards his crotch slowly, biting the side of her lip ever so slightly and asked, "Yeah?" in that breathless, slightly _nervous_ voice—

He nodded frantically all through his panic, because he was a fucking desperate moron of a man.

And then her (surprisingly _cold_ ) hand was in his fucking _pants_ and slipping into his _underwear_ and he squeezed his eyes shut and wheezed and fucking tried not to come.

And it was with his cock in her hand that they got interrupted and he didn't know _why_ to cry, really – out of relief or frustration, but it was crying either way.

Her purse beeped. He ripped his eyes open and she was so close, and she _cringed_ – and he hissed when she let go of his dick to jump from his bed to get it.

Except – his mind was not working well right now, he supposed, but the pink device she fished from her purse and dropped back into it immediately as if it burned her didn't _look_ like her phone…

She flushed bright red, started fishing her clothes from where she'd flung them onto his floor around his bed.

"I uh-there's this emergency with uh, Naru… and I…"

She wouldn't meet his eyes, hopped into her skirt.

He sat there dumbfounded with his pants open.

"You have to go?" he breathed – wide-eyed, relieved, disappointed, panicked, all in one – and yes, more than a bit hurt.

She looked at him then, and her eyes shone in such sincere regret and he—

He nodded. How could he ever be mad at these eyes—

"Tomorrow?" he croaked, and fastened his pants blindly, the sound of his zipper ripping through his scantily lit and silent room.

"Tomorrow," she nodded eagerly even when she bit her lip in apology.

He grunted harshly into his pillow the second the door clicked shut behind her, his hand already back at his pants—

But he didn't have time for _that_ , and he didn't have time to overthink, either. Turns out her sudden disappearance was a blessing after all, when, just a few moments after she was gone, he felt the tell-tale flutter in his gut that meant Sailor Moon was transforming – and he breathed out a sigh of relief once more that that _hadn't_ happened so far while his mouth and hands were on Usagi.

* * *

Her bones were newly made of rubber and her kidnapped mind held hostage somewhere back on charcoal sheets, and she _never_ hated Zoisite _more_.

And Zoisite's youma had the audacity to be of the _lover_ kind. The _lovesick_ kind. The ridiculous heart-eyes kind that still could shoot you dead.

It was hard, so hard to concentrate, and her distracted gummy bones fucked up front and center as she tried to do her job and failed at it spectacularly.

She was even too distracted to really work up so much as an eye roll at Mars's frustrated shouts and taunts at her, whenever she skidded to her knees or had to be yanked out and away from giant heart-shaped projectiles that offensively resembled the kind _she_ might wield instead.

Jupiter had been hit ten minutes ago, writhing against a tree, wanting to kiss whoever was nearby, held hostage by a very friendly golden heart-linked chain.

Mamoru was totally disappointed in her now, wasn't he? Was he even going to allow her back? She'd just… he'd made her… and then she'd…

But he'd said tomorrow. She clung to that. He'd said tomorrow and she'd try again and—

It took her a surprising amount of time to notice there was something off about Tuxedo Mask that night, too. And when she finally did it shocked her to the core.

Here he'd been, entirely unreceptive of her as per fucking usual, but _unlike_ always, she hadn't even really taken note of him as he lifted her out of danger again and again. Too lost in replaying the sensations she'd just experienced on charcoal-colored sheets, pressing against those sinfully long and tapered fingers as Mamoru played her like the easiest ever fucking instrument played by the most talented virtuoso, skillfull and effortless and fucking _unfair_ and mind-numbingly _good_ and—

And here he was, this perfect man, and she hadn't looked long enough to see him off in the clouds, too.

She came out of her haze, and at Ami's warning, dodged an attack, and shoved him out of the way with her.

He— He didn't even really notice.

Really, he seemed even more distracted than her.

Zoisite cackled, hovering in cherry blossoms with one wrist raised like the annoying diva he was, and the youma sprung into the air and shot again.

Then Mars turned her fury on _him_ —

What even was this?!

It went on like this. One moment he sighed and looked forlornly into the distance like a swooning maiden in a period drama, the next he bantered and smirked and dramatically flicked his cape and looked like he'd won the fucking world because he dodged a good one.

There was something— she couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something different about him.

And when he lifted her distracted butt once more out of the way and she practically _fell_ into his arms, he turned his charming wink to her, and it _boomed_ into her heart.

Yes, he was sighing like a lovesick girl, but he was also smiling in a way she'd never seen him smile.

He looked absolutely smitten.

"You look happy," she mumbled absentmindedly in his arms, and he blinked, and smiled down at her.

It was warm. It was charming. It made her heart flutter.

He set her down with the softest kind of touch, that proud smile he always held for her that always spoke of his unconditional belief in her, no matter how many times she fell.

He was the perfect man, he really was.

"Do I?" he smiled.

In the end, it wasn't her who bested the youma, it was Minako. Sailor Moon just held a wand aloft and shot where Venus kind of aimed her at.

He was long gone, his flamboyant farewell less showy than usual, more hurried than usual, when she realized that yes, she wanted nothing more. She wanted him to be happy.

And then she de-transformed, distracted and mush-for-brains and absolutely, totally, worn out, and with her last working none-exhausted brain cell wondered if it would be terribly rude to show up at Mamoru's door after midnight to try again…

* * *

Yes, _god_. This was what he was meant to do with his life, he was sure. No single doubt about it. He was meant to make her moan like this. Again. Again, again, _again_.

And if he was only ever allowed to do this now, he had to make it count.

And he did. Only a few days and uncannily many opportunities later in such a short span of time, he found himself getting surprisingly quick at making her come.

He'd never felt so fucking _proud_.

He was getting good at this. Better than he'd expected in his wildest dreams and maybe, _maybe_ , his heart whispered, these hands were just fucking _made_ for her. These hands buried deep inside of her, or even that one time when he ran into her at Crown and pulled her into the restrooms and did it rubbing her right through her pants only, with his tongue down her throat and his hands and knee at her crotch and she came whimpering into his mouth and bucking against his leg.

He was getting good at finding her weak spots, all the ones that drove her wild, adjusting the techniques he'd learned to this one and only woman that mattered to him. She _loved_ to be touched through fabric initially. She actually liked it better when he started using more fingers to stroke her once she was warmed up, and she was slightly more sensitive on the right side of her clit than on the left. He managed to make her come _easily_ by only stimulating her clit, and yet never when _only_ focusing on her vagina. And everything was more intense for her if he kissed her lights out first as if he never intended to touch her anywhere else at all, and didn't forget about all the touches that made her wild that he'd previously learned.

There were all these tons of little mysteries he all breathlessly got to unveil in so short a time. Yes, he got good at getting her there really, really quickly. And then he started drawing it out on purpose when he learned she'd come harder when it took him longer.

And then he started his learning curve all over again and learned it was all _different_ when it was his lips and his tongue that met slippery, swollen flesh that one intense time in the pitch dark that they never spoke about. When the groan that pressed broken through her lips was louder and more wrecked that his own, muffled by her sex.

He was actually, for real, getting fucking good at this.

Of course, though, he was stalling like crazy.

This was all hovering on an edge at a snail's pace, having started tame and innocent because _he_ was tame and innocent. But he was toeing the line and he didn't know how much longer he could keep it up.

Because they were doing things that were no longer tame and innocent at all, and now he really just wanted her to sit on his face and collapse around him as he licked and sucked and ate her dry. How _did_ you react when this goddess told you they wanted you? So, he vibrated in place with the sheer _want_ of being the person to give that to her. With his mouth. And hands. And cock. Especially his cock, _please_.. And his mouth. A lot. A very much amount of many many times. He wasn't picky, really. He wanted it so badly. As long as he could watch her face while she did. Over and over and over again.

And yet, it terrified him both in its intensity and the inevitability of what came next. Surely, _surely_ , this was the part he couldn't fake. This was where he'd be discovered as the inexperienced imposter that he was.

He'd filled a whole notebook by now. He knew what she liked. Some of those thrusting techniques he was currently writing a friggin _manual_ about compiling all the info he found on them - and had already tried a good number on her with his fingers, and thus could already estimate a bit which ones she might like and which ones he might not try when it came to it using something _other_ than his fingers, or even his tongue.

And yet his panicked heart was panicking more and more the longer he stalled. Some women didn't _like_ that part of sex. The penetration part. The intercourse part. _This_ part of sex that they were at right now was way safer. He _knew_ he did well with this, now. He _knew_ she liked this, already. He didn't scare her off with this.

And so, he listened to yet another podcast.

Knowledge never hurt.

* * *

He opened her fridge and frowned. Then he opened her pantry and frowned even harder.

He eyed the box of glittery, unicorn shaped sugar that had the gall to call itself cereal as if it was out to do him harm.

He shut the pantry with a glare just as the kettle popped.

"For someone so into food as you, you sure eat a whole lot of junk food," he groused.

When he turned around to glare at her, she was unpacking two packed styrofoam boxes from a plastic bag, embossed with the Coco Curry logo, and shrugged. Next to her she'd set aside a big, round, grey mug with a Totoro face on it, a lone herbal tea bag hanging from it.

He eyed the styrofoam boxes warily, too, and poured hot water into his designated mug.

"Yup," she said, popping the p and eyeing him in challenge, and snapping open the styrofoam. "And you're about to come to the dark side now," she said, and held out a pink pair of Sailor Moon themed chopsticks at him of all things, and a plastic spoon of some anime he didn't know.

He'd confessed he'd never had Coco Curry this morning when she'd randomly mumbled a craving of it into his mouth, and she'd called him after work and ordered him over.

He came running, basically. He'd never _been_ at her place…

He did not roll his eyes at the colorful cutlery. He did not. He just took it as it was offered and sat down across from her at the tiny stow-away table. There was a towel with red puckered kiss-lips printed on it laid out as if it were a table runner.

Her _toaster_ looked like Hello fucking Kitty.

"Has all your kitchenware been designed for kids?" he asked with a smirk, catching her eyes across the table as he lowered his colorful plastic spoon into the brown curry sauce straight from the styrofoam, and she clicked her tongue at him so prettily, her glare so absolutely withering.

But then he moaned into his food before he could help it and she looked at him in utter, obscenely impertinent victory.

"See?!" she howled, pointing at him with Sailor Venus themed chopsticks.

"It's good," he said with a roll of his eyes. "I didn't say it wouldn't be."

"Ah!" she protested, and he rolled his eyes again.

"I just said it's _not_ _good for you_." He lifted Totoro to his lips and sipped from his tea. "And I'm not wrong."

"Whatever." She wrinkled her nose at him in that cute way that made his heart jump. "This at least tastes amazing and I can provide it for myself."

A beat of silence, and then his mouth blurted something dangerous.

"I could cook for you sometime," he offered.

She whipped her eyes up to his.

He swallowed. Backpedaled into the safe, safe, mocking smirk. "You know, something that doesn't kill you in the long run."

She threw him that exasperated look, the one that she'd been sending him for 5 years, the one that had recently turned a bit fonder.

Really, his heart was absolutely overwhelmed.

It felt special, being invited here.

Everything here was so painfully Usagi – wherever he looked. There was a little note tacked to the fridge she'd signed with a cute doodle of a bunny, wishing Minako a good morning and to have a good photoshoot. There was a photo of Usagi and her girlfriends taped against the tiles, the stove looked pretty much unused while the microwave looked like a fucking mess.

This was all her and he was allowed in.

She started nervously fidgeting by the time he'd moved his unabashedly searching out eyes into her small bedroom.

White wallpaper with spattered, tiny little blue and purple flowers on one wall. Lavender bedspread with moons and bunnies that looked well worn and well loved and made his heart ache a little bit. Fairy lights above the bed. A vanity overhung with pictures and trinkets and inexpensive yet pretty jewelry. Her cat nestled in a sunny spot on a plush looking armchair wedged into a narrow corner and overflowing with flowery cushions.

He went up to her with a smile, ran the pads of his fingers through the soft fur, and he felt Usagi's eyes on him. The cat arched her back and blinked her eyes open at him in that curiously knowing way, then flicked them to Usagi.

And then he spied something that made the smugness paint his lips in blissful, conceited arrogance, he was so fucking, irrationally _pleased_ —

He was across her room in a heartbeat, plucked a plushed Tuxedo Mask doll – starched fabric rose and all – from her vanity and held it up with the biggest smirk that ever graced his lips.

"So, Tuxedo Mask, eh?" he purred.

He couldn't _not_. The tease was inevitable. His smirk was surely positively leering.

She blushed like crazy, harder and pinker than he'd ever seen her blush, to the tips of her ears and down her neckline, and he _knew_ how far down that blush went—

She ripped it from his hands and opened a drawer beneath her bed. In it – he could see it peeking out – was already one of those big Tuxedo Mask pillows they used to sell a few years ago, and his chest _flared_ in absolute _glee_.

Still, he raised both eyebrows at her entirely too suggestively as the doll disappeared with a kick of her foot.

"I _really_ don't mind, you know?" he drawled like a douche. "Why, Odango. Are you a fan?"

Even her _cat_ meowed in a way that sounded like a _snicker_ , and Usagi glared at her until the animal jumped and fled the room as if shooed.

He was pretty sure in all the years he had never seen her so uneasy. But he simply _couldn't_ let this go. It was just _too good._

He stepped closer to her when she didn't answer, drew a finger along the pretty blush of her cheeks. "It's the evening wear, isn't it?" he teased.

She slapped his hand away with a growl and then hit his arm for good measure.

All he could do was chuckle, absolutely-fucking- _delighted_ , arms held up in meek defense.

"It's…." she stared, then blushed, visibly uneasy.

He smiled, feeling foolishly, over-the-top giddy, and stepped up to her again, chasing the space between them.

When he cupped her warm cheeks in his hand, she was pouting prettily, and something was in her eyes he'd never seen. And yet, when he leaned down to kiss it away too sweetly, way too slowly (because how could he _not_ – the woman who owned his heart owned a fucking doll AND a pillow of him and she didn't even _know_ ), brushing his lips against her almost chastely, always worshipful, she eventually sighed and puckered her lips back against his.

Her shoulders untensed when, after he released her lips, he took pity on her and changed the subject.

He looked around. Turned and moved in the small, cramped room and dragged a finger along her tiny, narrow, absolutely cluttered desk. Cinema stubs and printed but unstored photos, her laptop entirely covered in cutesy stickers.

"It's very... you," he summarized dumbly.

"Very messy you mean."

He smirked at her. It was all he could do today, it seemed.

At her look though, he allowed somewhat of a sweeter smile to grace his lips, or so he hoped.

"Very bright," he said with a shrug, eyeing her colorful shelf of manga. "Happy. Innocent."

She snorted.

"I'm not as innocent as you seem to think."

He shrugged as he turned back to her. "You're the purest person I know," he admitted right at her face.

She threw him a look, arms crossed, then quirked an eyebrow at him, pulled her nightstand drawer open, and showed him a dildo.

He raised both eyebrows. It was see-through silicone, bright colorful little dots encased in it in a random spattering.

"Your dildo looks like there's confetti in it?" he threw at her, willing the blush down as best he could.

She shrugged. The dildo wobbled a little with her movement.

"Well," he said, flushing, but he stood his ground. "Even your dildo looks bright and happy. You're kinda proving my point."

Her challenging eyes fell into a petulant glare. The confetti dildo went into the drawer and a hot pink vibrator that looked vaguely shaped like a dolphin was yanked out and held up.

He felt the heat crawl up his neck. He didn't exactly need _this_ specific imagery for his wet dreams, thank you very much.

"Still very happy and bright," he said, then nodded to her drawer. "What more do you have in there, then?"

It was supposed to be a challenge. It was supposed to make her blush. But she didn't. She just pulled the drawer out open and waited.

He swallowed. Stepped up into her personal space and looked down.

He was the one who blushed. Hard. Then he slowly closed the drawer and cleared his throat.

"Right," he croaked.

"I live with Minako Aino," she challenged, craning her neck and dancing so cutely on her toes almost unconsciously to look into his eyes as he stood so close to her. "You've got nothing on me. I saw you flinch at the word 'cunt'."

And as if on cue, he flinched again.

"So, what?" He blushed. "I don't like that word."

She smiled up at him, played with the button border of his anthrazit shirt.

"It's a bit... harsh, don't you find?" he defended himself, and she giggled in amusement, stroking up his chest.

"What do YOU call it?" It was her turn to do the smirking, apparently. One finger went between the buttons and stroked his chest.

He shivered, looked at the ceiling and tried to keep his wits.

"Vagina?" he said. "Or you know... NOTHING? I leave it out?"

She snorted. "Excuse me?"

But then she grinned, reached up, and pinched his cheek.

He glared at her. Especially when she started cooing with little cries or "aren't you the cutest," to make fun of him, and with a slight push from him, she landed on her bed, bouncing off it and giggling helplessly.

He knew it was a cheap shot. But with a yank he pulled out the drawer from beneath her bed, freed the Tux doll, and stroked his hand over it. She flushed immediately.

"You're one to talk," he smirked, then cooed a bit how cute she was in exactly her previous tone, and settled the doll in the corner of her bed, on top of one fluffed up pillow.

But instead of fighting it, of bantering back, her eyes lingered on it, then went back to his.

He was kneeling basically over her, he realized. On her bed.

She was pretty much sprawled out beneath him. Hot pink polished toes and lips eternally swollen from his kisses.

He was in her _bed_.

He licked his lips, stared down at her, and god she looked so… so open, so expectant as she looked back up at him, hair fanning out around her.

Maybe it was because it felt so intimate being in _her_ bed for once, or maybe because there was visible, plushed proof sitting on her pillow right now that she liked at least _some_ version of him, or maybe he'd just finally lost his mind, but when her fingers reached up to undo his buttons, starting at his throat, for once he didn't stop her.

He stayed still, propped up above her almost petrified. He shivered every time her fingertips brushed his skin, stared mutely into her eyes as they moved down his chest, bit his lips when she was done, and he watched her brush her own teeth against her lower lip as she smoothed her hands against his abs for the first time, watched her mouth open and close and open as she watched her own finger trace the muscles so intensely.

She was dipping her fingers against the hollow beneath his hip bones, and traced a finger along the waistband of his pants with her lower lip firmly trapped between her teeth when she flicked her eyes back up to him, her eyelashes fluttering so prettily, wrecking him with the wanton look he found in them.

Her head moved along her bed as she tilted her head up at him, baring her throat, arching her back a little and aligning her hips with his, and he exhaled audibly, involuntarily, watching her.

"Do you want to stay…?" she asked his mouth slowly, lips moving in that dragging way.

His mouth popped open to find an excuse but he… he didn't want an excuse. He wanted to fall into her and fall asleep in her bed and then have her again in the morning and…

"Minako's not gonna be back until late and…" she said, eyes shining in hope, finger drawing circles on the skin just above his belt.

Staring at her eyes, he undid his belt slowly in answer and her words trailed off before she even finished uttering the sentence.

She whimpered when it landed somewhere outside her bed with a metallic clank of the buckle on hardwood. Sighed in that pretty, tortured way when he didn't stop and undid his black jeans, too, then pushed his hands into the sides of them to drag them slowly down his hips and they landed on her floors with a little thud as well. Sighed in that most broken way of all when her hands roamed across his naked skin for the first time and he was on her in nothing but his black boxer briefs and his staring eyes for the first time in all the weeks they'd been doing this weird thing now, while she, for once, was still fully dressed.

And then her legs wrapped around him and she flipped him over with a powerful yank he didn't think she'd be strong enough for, and he found himself nearly naked underneath her, hair spilling from her buns down onto him as she ground herself against his very painful erection and leaned down to push her tongue into his mouth and kiss his lights out all at the same time.

He groaned pitifully into her mouth, bit at her lip. This was a scene straight from one of his dreams.

Her mouth was hot and fast and addicting, and he could barely keep up, and when she sat up and released his lips suddenly only to grind down harder against his cock, he hissed and craned his neck up to follow her mouth before it bounced back against bunnies-and-moons.

Her eyes were the most intoxicating shade, half-lidded and aroused, and the way she rhythmically rolled her hips against his, over and over, kind of ruined him. And then it got worse, and she yanked her skirt up so it was her underwear against his, and he shuddered and whimpered as she threw her head back because well fucking _yes_ , this _was_ the least barrier they'd ever had between his cock and her pussy, and _god_ he could _feel_ it, he could feel his cock pressing against her sex, could feel it dipping against the warm, damp hollow in her panties that was her very aroused vagina and _shit—_

And then she grabbed at his cock and freed it from his underwear and he _yelped_ and fell apart as she pressed it flat against his belly and rubbed herself against it.

His eyes were wide. So, so wide and entranced and there was no control left as she braced her little hands on his chest and he watched her grind her panties against his bare cock, up and down, up and down, watched how her pussy wrapped itself snug against him through the wet, wet fabric as she kept rubbing, rubbing, base to shaft, base to shaft, against her clit, biting her lip and making those _noises_ – and he had to bite his tongue because this was too _good_ , this was—

This went too fast. He couldn't concentrate like this, he couldn't—

But she sat up again, eyes on his this time, pressing hard against his cock and oh _shit_ and—

And then she lifted her frilly shirt over her head, and she wasn't wearing a bra.

They bounced, plump and full and dropping like flawless, round teardrops, fuller on the underside, nipples pink and pebbled and _perfect_ , and he twitched against her pussy and started _leaking_ and whimpered the most pained sound he'd ever heard escape his lips.

Her eyes bore into his and she frowned, her dark, aroused eyes shining in concern and she stopped her hips from moving.

"Do you want to stop?" she asked, eyes alarmed.

He should say yes. But he didn't. He shook his head so sharply he was surprised his neck didn't crack.

"No," he hissed, his voice cracking and not working right.

Because no, he _didn't_ want her to stop. He wanted her to unwrap him like a gift and ride him until she came, chasing her pleasure on his cock. He wanted her so badly it _hurt_. But it was this oldest of all hypocrisies that shot into his mind. That this was wrong. They weren't a couple. She liked someone else. She should be giving her first time to someone she loved, like she'd done with her first kiss. That it was wrong to take this from her, wrong to trick her into giving him the thing he wanted most in the world: her.

That it should at least happen when he'd put more thought into this. When he had a condom. When he'd sprinkled his bed in rose petals and put that stupid playlist on and the fairy lights and seduced her with wine and a homecooked dinner and a bubble bath they shared and kissed her for an hour.

But goddammit she was offering, she'd _been_ offering, and yes, yes, shitdamn _yes,_ he really, really wanted to be her first. Much more even than he wanted her to be _his_ first (and he wanted that _so badly_ ), he wanted to be _her_ first. He wanted to be her _only_. He wanted any piece of her he could have, and she was offering it up. And he wanted it _now_. _Here_. In her bed, where she would remember it every night, remember _him_ every night.

He should stop her. She liked someone else while he worshipped her. This was an adventure to her while he was putty in her fingers. But his brain was out-of-office today and denied all working capability, and so he didn't. Instead, when she got off him and slowly lowered her panties, he whimpered like an addict waiting for his fix and scrambled hastily out of his own underwear. Instead, he nodded fervently with bitten lips and swallowed tongues through each and every of her following versions of, "Is this ok?" and "Are you sure?". Instead, he bucked his hips up at her eagerly when she reached into her nightstand and slipped a blessed condom on him after all, because while _he_ knew they were both virgins, he still reckoned he'd last longer that way.

Yes, he should stop her. He was too worked up, this was too fast, this would be a fucking disaster. But instead his last brain cell surrendered with its dick out and dripping, and before he could even process it really, she lowered herself on his cock and took him.

He didn't last longer this way. He didn't last at all.

She'd barely fully sat down on him when something white and intense ripped through his brain and shouted down his throat and he came on the spot.

He looked up at her, panting, shocked. It took a moment for him to fully compute what had happened, for the mortification to settle.

But it did. Settle. It settled very, very deep.

Her eyes were as wide as his, and if all his blood was not currently still located elsewhere, his blush would have surely physically burned him.

"Oh," he gasped at the same time as her.

He saw her face change as if in slow motion. Her surprised look morphed into a widening smile, morphed into a full-blown grin, almost a snicker, and _would_ have morphed into one of those breathless, bright giggles of hers, but he couldn't, he couldn't take it, and so he used a bit of his superhero strength and flipped her over in a speed that was perhaps a bit too fast, with a grip that was a bit too effortless, and grabbed at the condom at the base of his cock to slip out of her, flushed and embarrassed and defeated.

She settled first onto her elbows, then moved to tuck her legs beneath her. Her breasts bounced, those enticing blonde hairs covering her sex shone glistening, and he ripped his eyes from her and searched for his underwear. "Wait. What—"

He found it near her vanity, slipped it on after he'd slipped the soiled condom off, his back turned to her in shame as he tied it and put it in a tissue from his pant pocket.

"Mamo-chan…"

Her voice turned alarmed, and he heard her shift and get up behind him. _Naked_. Unashamed. Uninhibited. Perfect.

He couldn't turn around.

Her hand settled at the small at his back as he tried to wriggle into his tight jeans.

"Hey…" she murmured. "It's totally ok. It's not a big deal, we can—"

He faced her again only when he slipped on his shirt, had fastened the first few buttons—

And stopped wide-eyed, suddenly doused in intense self-loathing. She wasn't unashamed. She was awkwardly clutching her comforter around her, pressed to her chest. She looked crest-fallen and nervous.

This was her first time and he was running out on her.

And it had happened in her bed and she would remember it every night.

(And to top it all off, he was technically doing it after _he'd_ come, and _she_ hadn't, just like...just like... like he read about, like these self-absorbed, stupid—)

The shame _doubled_ in his chest and nearly choked him. What the fuck was he doing—

Her eyes were swimming, and he gasped, stepped forward, and wrapped her in a hug, comforter and all.

Her hands settled on his back way, way, way too slowly.

"I'm sorry," he spoke into the crown of her head. "I'm… I was too worked up, and I… This doesn't usually…"

He trailed off, stopped himself. Because it would have been a lie. How could he say this doesn't usually happen to him when he had absolutely no data on what usually happened to him? This was the first time his cock had been in a woman, even if she didn't know that, and he wasn't ready to confess.

Though he doubted she had trouble figuring that out on her own, now. It was probably written on his forehead at this point.

"Can you stay?" she whispered, and it sounded _wet_ , and he hated himself.

"Yeah…" he whispered, dropped a kiss against her hair, and held her a bit tighter.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go, I hope you like ;) And reviews are all the love and keep me going as I drown in work lol.
> 
> Next up: dealing with Mamoru's performance anxiety. Also, probably (maybe) a TED Talk on penetration and how it can be made so much better for most women with the simplest of tricks, because I feel like it. We'll see.


	8. Threshold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand here you go! For those few of you who were a little put off by last chapter: Remember I do NOT write Mamoru The Pornstar and as thus he's allowed to be nervous and insecure. Great sex isn't made by everything working as you want it to, but by being willing to learn together over and over again!
> 
> Anyway, I'm happy this fic is still making so, so, so many of you happy! YOU ARE ALL SO VERY MUCH LOVED BY ME! Some of you are so enthusiastic about this fic and honestly that gives me LIFE and makes me fucking squeal at my inbox over your reviews and DEFINITELY makes me want to finish it faster! (Which I then spent last night doing!) THANK YOU!

* * *

The Unintentional Seduction of Chiba Mamoru  
Chapter 8: Threshold

* * *

Mamoru woke up in a wrong room in a wrong bed to the sun filtering through the windows in a way he wasn't used to, and blinked awake in confusion, disoriented, until he remembered where he was.

But his heart somersaulted when it came back to him, and the comforter he lay beneath was _hers_ , and the room wasn't wrong it was _precious_ , and he turned around just slightly, carefully, trying not to move too much as not to disturb her.

And so, he turned, pretty much holding his breath, and it hitched when he noticed her small arm thrown over his torso, her slender fingers twitching a little as she dreamed, and he fought the urge to cradle it.

When he'd turned around fully, slowly, his heart turned a little into goop. Her other arm lay thrown over her forehead like a fainting dame, her mouth wide open, legs spread, sleep shirt ridden up, and one knee propped up and leaning against the wall her bed was pushed against – she slept _weird_. It was _adorable_.

His gaze whipped back around to a sound by a window in alarm, and relaxed when he saw one of the two cats in her open windowsill settle down onto its front paws. In fact, the two cats were watching him curiously, almost unblinkingly intense, posing like wary, judging sphinxes contemplating whether they needed to defend what was theirs against him.

Luna and her little friend, Minako's cat.

"Hi," he said quite dumbly, half expecting them to react for some reason.

They didn't, of course, except for a twitching ear or two and a more intense stare.

But it caused Usagi to grumble a groggy "G'morning", to burrito into the comforter as she turned to her side, and to hit him in the face with her other arm.

He groaned, then chuckled, then frowned, remembering last night with a cringe.

He turned fully to his side, wide awake now, and felt a little bit like a stalker as he slid close and watched her breathe through that wide-open mouth, her head tilted back as if someone had hit her K.O.

He exhaled, tucked his hands beneath his chin as to keep from reaching out, and then reached out anyway, and stroked his hand along the side of her shirt, dragging it back down her belly to cover her, then allowed his hand to travel just the short distance of smooth thigh that it took to reach her comforter.

Trying to untangle it was a lost cause though, and so he shifted closer to share a bit of the small portion of blanket his sleeping body had acquired in what seemed to have been an intense nightly battle for the covers, and covered her with it.

And then he shivered, his feet laying bare now. He was only in his underwear.

And still he sighed and never wanted to move. Like this, he could easily imagine what it might be like living with her, the wrinkles of her sheets painted into her skin suddenly seeming like the most precious thing he'd ever seen, and he wanted more of this, he wanted it so badly.

Even though, after last night, he really wasn't sure if he would get so much as a single day more of this, and the thought immediately pressed into his chest, and made the moment something priceless, something he might never again have. Something given to him under false pretenses that would get taken away any second now, and he stared at her sleeping form as if he had to sketch it from memory soon and that would be the only way he'd ever get to see her again.

And so, he stared. Even when his bladder kind of screamed at him. (But who was he kidding – he was too scared to walk out there and potentially walk into Minako Aino anyway. She would take one look at him and telepathically know he'd ruined Usagi's first time, he was pretty sure of that.)

Just a bit more of this. In her bed. With her sleeping next to him. Just a few more moments where he could pretend he was actually her boyfriend, actually someone she loved back, this precious, precious woman.

Her alarm blared and he frowned hard – it was the obnoxiously annoying midi file melody of Ikebukuro station, set to maximum volume so loud it startled him violently, and he _was_ already awake. It ripped her from sleep wide-eyed and short of breath.

He snatched her phone from her nightstand and shut the damned thing off, then shook it at her in accusation.

" _That's_ your alarm?" he asked her sleepily blinking eyes. "Do you _want_ a heart attack?"

She rolled her eyes, then slammed her face into his ribs and rolled on top of him.

He let out a small oompf, and it settled into a smile as he allowed his arms to hug her back as she snuggled into him, and started to card his fingers through her hair.

That felt a bit better than just watching.

Her breathing was back to slowing when he thought to ask.

"Does that alarm mean you actually have to get up?" he murmured, cheek at her temple, legs tangling with hers.

"Mhhh-mhhh," she grunted.

He huffed a smile, stroked his hand through golden hair, in, down, out. In, down, out. "Is that a yes or a no?"

"Mhh-mhhhhhh," she grunted again, a bit softer, even sleepier.

He probably shouldn't have shut her alarm off, come to think of it.

And then a _second_ alarm went off, and he whipped his head up in confusion. A decidedly old and worn looking plastic chicken tightly wedged into the iron bars of her headboard, that loudly started robotically chirping, followed by a disturbing and rather tinny rendition of the _weirdest_ ever _bawk-bawk-bawk_.

Her arm shot out, blindly batting at the thing, and then a _third_ alarm went off – a normal beeping sound coming from somewhere across the room.

And when a fourth one chimed in (a little robot on her vanity blaring rather rude little commands), and she was still growling into his chest, he kinda lost it. He started laughing, belly-deep and shaking, and it hurt a little, since there was a whole person currently laying on his chest and obstructing his lungs.

(There was a fifth and sixth one, too.)

He was still laughing about it later, in her kitchen, even if it wasn't that funny, really (though it really, really was.) It made sense, of course, in a weird way. Someone as perpetually late as Usagi would have need of many an alarm.

"My strategy for adulting," she'd admitted with a flushed face and a toothbrush in her mouth, and if he hadn't already lost his heart to her 5 years prior, he would have right then.

Minako, thankfully, was nowhere to be seen, and he tried to mask his sigh in relief upon the discovery – the only trace of her a new message on the fridge and a doodle of a crying girl, announcing a sunrise photoshoot and that Usagi better let her sleep for 48 hours afterwards, followed by a lipstick mark pressed to the paper.

He was awarded a very pink guest toothbrush and it kind of slammed into his heart, especially when it was put into a cup right next to hers. It got even worse when he stepped into her shower after she was done in it, and the whole room smelled like her shampoo. And when she ate her glitter-unicorn-'cereal' (no. just no.) and he opted for a packaged onigiri from her hellhole of a fridge instead with a disdainful look at her choice of breakfast, and she petulantly ate her glittery poison quite slowly and deliberately chewing almost theatrically for him as she stared at him with every bite in challenge to just _try_ and object with her choice… somehow it was suddenly ok he'd failed last night. Somehow, he still had a second chance. Somehow, he was still welcome. Somehow, he was pretty sure she hadn't even minded.

He'd do better next time. He promised. He promised with every longing stare at her and her toxic food.

He ended up heading to class an hour early and in yesterday's clothes and with yesterday's notes in his bag because it meant he could ride on the train with her.

And, transferring from the Namboku line onto the Marunouchi line once more, this time, when the train got crowded and she bumped back into him again, he lifted his arms with an aching heart and hugged her from behind, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pressing his nose into the crown of her hair. It wasn't long before her hands came up to wrap around both of his across her chest, but when she tilted her chin down to kiss his fingertips, he couldn't take it. He dropped his face into her hair at the crown of her head and inhaled like a creep.

He would get this right tonight.

At least that's the promise he whispered into her ear when he arrived at his stop too soon, and dropped a small, soft kiss onto her lips as he left the train.

She looked after him with a soft blush and a wave.

* * *

So, he had a, uh… much easier access to roses than others.

He wondered if he overdid it.

He'd filled every vase he owned and then more than a few empty bottles, too, and placed them all around that little space that made up his couch and coffee table and the bed, like the kitschiest frame ever found in a bachelor pad.

He was going to make nabe. He was good at nabe. He knew she liked hotpot dishes in general and there was nothing he could do wrong there. He'd bought the ingredients after his second class, along with a pair of long-stemmed candles. And then, on his way home from the supermarket, he'd read an article on some women's magazine's online site about 'sexiest homemade food' that told him if he wanted to seduce someone with his cooking, it was especially sexy to prepare finger food. Something that could be shared from the same platter on a couch or a bed next to each other. That it set a sexier mood than a 'stiff sit-down candlelight affair', where a table and literal fire separated anyone involved. Nevermind the fact that eating with one's fingers and from the same plate was apparently already a lot more sensual and felt much closer to sex as it was, or so they said.

And so, he'd dropped off his groceries and went directly back out to buy new, different ones. Ridiculously expensive new ones.

And this was how he found himself in his kitchen, swearing, watching a last-minute purchased online masterclass instruction video as he rubbed fresh wasabi radish across a hand-grater, because he was an idiot pretending to be a sushi chef for a girl that loved to eat and would surely be able to tell his imperfection in the matter with the first bite.

He should have just ordered sushi.

But no, here he was, trying to prepare scallops and tuna and sea bream snapper and the fattiest salmon he managed to find last minute at Tsukiji's Outer Market that late in the day and making them look at least kind of good on a matte black slate platter, then sprinkling them with freshly pickled spring onions and fine nori strips.

His nigiris looked kind of fine. Passable. His makis looked a little crooked and he despaired over it too much, before he decided to top them with rocket and sauce and kewpie sushi mayo.

Then he wondered if he could manage to shower in 8 minutes because he now smelled like fish. (He managed in 6, and had plenty of time to get his hair dry too, since Usagi was late as always.)

By the time her hot pink toes dug themselves into his green rug to the dim lighting and the smooth jazz playlist, he was a nervous wreck again, and sipped at his glass of wine before even filling hers.

She looked absolutely shocked, eyes jumping from the roses to the sushi to his black T-shirt and dark, tight jeans and bare feet, and back to the abundance of roses.

He shouldn't have overdone this.

Her fingers were digging into the hem of her skirt in that nervous kneading motion she sometimes did.

"What is this?" she blinked wide-eyed, eyeing the overladen sushi platters. (Yes. It was a _lot_ of sushi. But this woman _liked to eat goddammit_ …)

He stood paralyzed with both glasses at the other end of his couch and swallowed and forgot to hand her one.

"I told you I'd cook for you…."

Her eyes pretty much bugged out of her head and she whipped her eyes from the sushi to him. "Wait, you MADE this?!" she practically yelped.

But he just nodded, tried to swallow his nerves, and held out her glass for her.

* * *

She'd moaned over the sushi. She'd praised and gushed and praised some more, over-the-top and exaggerated, swearing this was the best sushi she'd had in ages and could he please cook for her every time now. She'd demanded to be fed a couple of times with flirtatious and yet way too giggly prompts. She'd been sweet. She'd flirted. She'd been into this. She wasn't the problem. At all.

He was.

He tried to be smooth. He tried to be sexy. And yet, in direct contrast to just this morning – to a toothbrush in her bathroom designated to him and waking up in her bed and eating breakfast together – this was so stilted and awkward he felt like being back at square one, and he wanted to scream.

He hadn't even kissed her in greeting. He'd done that every time for weeks now, and this time he just… hadn't. It hadn't occurred to him that he could. He wondered if this weren't so painful if he had.

He was absolutely high-strung, pining like a high schooler (but a decidedly mean-spirited one), sitting cross-legged in the farthest corner of his couch and watching her eat while he swirled his wine glass like a creep, trying to make awkward small talk until she rolled her eyes at him pointedly with a _look_.

Last night he'd had his cock in her – (albeit for like, seconds.) Tonight, he didn't know what to _say_ to her…

The question, "Are you ok?" had been asked by her multiple times now.

He wasn't ok. He was blowing this. _Again_. Spectacularly. And yet he'd shrugged the question off every time.

That was it, then, he guessed. Charade was up.

"Listen…" Usagi started, shoulders falling, flicking her eyes up from the sushi platter in her lap.

(It had been quite obvious what her intention had been moving it there. And yet, the moment she had, had been the second he'd stopped eating. And it said something when Tsukino Usagi was _glaring_ while eating.)

But he really couldn't take that look, or her slumped shoulders. He was sure if he'd let her talk she'd end this… whatever this was between them. Would he be, what… fired?

And so, he interrupted her instead.

"There's more sushi in the fridge, if you're…"

He trailed off, awkwardly.

She sighed, growing silent, and studied his eyes.

"Do you want more wine?"

Really, his attempts to fill the Awkward were downright painful, really.

But she kept silent, kept studying him.

He was about to bolt to the kitchenette behind them to get more wine and sushi regardless, just to flee, when she spoke with the most intense look she'd ever thrown him.

"Let's play a game," she suggested. Except it sounded more like an order.

His shoulders grew even tenser.

"You want to play a game?" he sputtered, grasping the stem of his wineglass a little tighter.

She nodded. "Two truths and a lie."

His air went out in a woosh. One of those silly getting-to-know-each-other games. The kind you played with strangers. The kind you played when conversation didn't flow. The type you played when it was getting awkward. The type those women's online magazines he'd been reading only earlier today to get some pointers suggested you play when a date went south but you wanted to painfully try and salvage it…

He sighed deeply.

"I suppose…" he said, quite unable to keep the dejection from his voice and deeply worrying how it would come out.

Her brow settled into a deep frown.

He just waved a hand in a 'go ahead' motion, lips firmly set into a grim line, and her brow furrowed even more.

"Let's raise the stakes," she ordered next.

He raised an eyebrow. "You want to gamble over 'Two truths and a lie'?"

She nodded. It looked fierce and determined and cute and he would have snorted at her if he were still able to find any humor in this situation.

"Whoever wins gets a wish," she said with a decisive nod.

He raised his other eyebrow to join in on the eyebrow raising.

"Something real though. Something big," she said, and scooted closer, sushi platter and all. "Something meaningful."

He just gave her a look.

"Something like," she went on, "Something like, if you lose, I can wish that you cook for me for the rest of my life, and you absolutely have to do it," she said, and her glare was so serious and so cute that this time, he did snort.

It managed to ghost a smile across her lips in retaliation, and some of the tension in his shoulders eased at its brief appearance.

"Or you know, whatever. Something big."

He sighed, nodded. "Ok…"

If he had to cook for her for the rest of her life, at least, that meant he would be in it. Even if just as the cook…

"Well then," she said, a small smile back on her lips as she popped another nigiri in her mouth and proceeded to talk with her mouth full. "You staa-rd—"

"Wait," he interrupted with a frown. "Who wins?"

She frowned as if he was being stupid. Popped another nigiri in her mouth, swallowed visibly, and he threw her an exasperated look right back.

"The person who exposes the most lies, duh," she said. "You start," she repeated, reaching for another piece of sushi, and nodded at him.

He swirled his glass, frowned, stalled a bit.

He stuck to safe zones. "I go jogging in the mornings. I was never in a drama club. I read a lot."

And immediately, he didn't hate the idea of that game anymore.

Because Usagi blinked at him in that open, precious way.

"You were in a _drama club_?" she sputtered, and he quirked a slow smile.

"What, don't you think I'm dramatic enough?" he smirked, but then lost his grandeur just as it returned. "We tried to do Snow White once," he said with a shrug, deflating. "But the rest of the club bailed on me."

But it did calm him down enough to reach into her lap. And get a maki.

She beamed as he chewed.

"Well," she said, shifting on her knees and the color-coded cushions on his couch in the process. "My favorite food is my mama's lemon tart, I suck at tongue twisters, and I know Yusuke Amade, I helped him get together with his wife."

He snorted. "You want to tell me you played match-maker for a famous composer?"

But she smirked the smuggest smirk he'd ever seen grace those pouty, pretty lips. "Pad kid poured curd pulled cod," she shot out really fast. And then, equally fast, "If you must cross a course cross cow across a crowded cow crossing, cross the cross coarse cow across the crowded cow crossing carefully."

Well, his eyebrows shot back to his hairline. "You know _Yusuke Amade_?" he sputtered.

Really, her smirk was _gorgeous_.

"Nope, no follow-up questions. Your turn," she purred way too victoriously.

He licked his lips, shifted forward. Thought for a second.

Then he smirked right back.

"I once jumped in front of a truck to save your cat from certain death and then you accused me of manhandling her instead of thanking me," he said.

She rolled her eyes, and he shifted his elbow onto the back of the couch as he continued.

"I had an imaginary friend who was an alien when I stayed at the hospital as a child. I never hijacked a zeppelin."

Her eyes whipped to his. "Wait, what?"

He just slowly smirked at her.

"That's a trick, right?!"

He didn't comment, just kept smiling, absolutely amused.

"No way you did that," she said wide-eyed. "You didn't. I say the imaginary friend is bullshit. Maybe the whole hospital thing."

He slowly shook his head. "Nope."

She almost dropped the sushi as she jerked in her seat. "WAIT, YOU STOLE A ZEPPELIN? WHAT?! HOW— WHAT?!"

He laughed. "Your turn."

"Wait, no way!"

Yep, he kinda started to love that game. Even when using superhero stuff felt a _bit_ like cheating, but… ah well. Maybe he'd get a wish.

"Your turn. No follow-up questions, remember?" he smiled too smugly, and she groaned.

"Ughhh…"

But her eyes looked so adorably intense when she rattled off her next round.

"I once spent a night in a house I _swear_ was haunted but Rei says no."

He snorted.

"I once tried to steal my mama's drapes to sew a wedding dress with them."

His eyebrows came back to the party. "You can sew?" he asked, perhaps a bit too incredulously, but she shrugged.

"Nope." She popped the 'p', then continued on in the same breath. "I once got a love letter from Tuxedo Mask."

"You never got a love letter from Tuxedo Mask," he shot off directly. Perhaps a bit too quickly.

"Hey, the other ones were so good!" She pouted. "What, you don't think he could be into me?"

_Oh, he's into you._

"You're forgetting that I was there when you got the fake."

Also he'd, well, _know_.

Her shoulders dropped, and the sushi platter bounced a bit on top of her. "Ugh. Darn."

She stuffed a whole nigiri into her mouth through her pout, and he couldn't help another small, enamored huff at the sight.

He barreled out his round before she had a chance to interpret his reaction.

"I like to hang out at this rundown house taken over by stray kittens," he said, and she raised her eyebrow this time. "I sometimes like to climb on tall things. I don't own a Tuxedo Mask doll."

The look he got at that was positively withering. "Yeah, yeah, keep making fun of my doll. Real nice."

He smirked.

"I say the kittens are the lie."

He shook his head. "Nope."

Pretty blue eyes jumped at him. "Wait, which one is the lie?!"

But he just threw her a half-smile. One of those he knew she found absolutely irritating. "No follow-ups."

"MAMO-CHAN!"

He chuckled. "Your turn."

She nearly growled, but then put on her determined face. He was in the lead after all.

"I never stole a boat with Minako."

"What?!"

"I once went to an embassy ball. I once almost fell down an elevator shaft."

Her look was intense, even when he sobered, taken aback, blanching.

"Wait," he breathed, eyes widening, picturing it. He was too alarmed. "Are you ok? You fell down an e—"

But then her eyes widened. "Uh…uh… no. That was, uh… that was the lie."

He frowned, even as she behaved… weird.

An arm at the back of her head, scratching. Nervous giggling. He frowned harder. "Aaand now I gave it away. I'll just uh, go again…"

But she rushed through his silent observation. "I love carrots," she nearly yelped, then swallowed, and spoke more normally. "I've had this hairstyle since I was a baby. I hide behind my cat when I'm embarrassed."

He was still frowning. "You hate carrots," he shot out right away, though. "Too easy."

She frowned right back.

But he really didn't want that weird silence between them to come back, and so he went on. "Well," he started. "I also once went to an embassy ball."

She threw him a look.

"I love peppers. I once stepped on your friend Rei's head."

That did the intended trick. She snorted, bubbling out laughter.

"Oh, I remember that," she scoffed, and her voice quivered as she laughed again, so sudden and hard she rolled her back against the arm of his couch behind her and he had to chuckle, too.

"The embassy ball is the lie!" she yelped through a big, round of too silly giggles.

"No," he said. "I hate peppers."

The giggles died down in favor of a shot open mouth. She really did have the most expressive face.

Which is how he _knew_ the elevator thing was real, and that whole thing was—

"Whaaa? When did you—"

"Nuh-uh, your turn."

She tilted her head at him, held his eyes for a second, and it was unnerving.

"This is getting hard," she frowned.

It was. He was running out of safe truths. The hard ones were just at the tip of his tongue.

Like…

_I'm crazy about you._

_I'm absolutely, totally, stupidly in love with you._

_Yesterday was my first time, too._

_I'm terrified to touch you again because of how I messed that up last night._

_I'm terrified I never get to touch you_ again _._

"Well, let's stop, then," he croaked. "I won, right? I get a wish."

She pouted, her lips pushed into that most unfair moue. Then her gaze fell to the remaining sushi in her lap in deepest regret, before she moved those begging eyes back up to him, and really, he would do _anything_ when she pouted at him like this.

"Don't make me cook for you for the rest of your life, please," she begged pitifully.

He laughed. It was automatic. Goddammit, did he love her—

"All I can cook semi-well is curry rice, it would be totally boring for you," she defended herself, visibly concerned.

He smiled. But then it died right on his lips, because it was a hard truth that slipped from his mouth that he didn't manage to swallow back down.

"Forget the other guy," he shot out. Begging. Too seriously. Too real. Too true.

_Pick me._

"What?" her eyes flew wide open.

His voice came out broken. "That's my wish…"

She stared. Didn't even blink.

"He doesn't deserve you," he croaked out. "He's an idiot. Forget him."

Pick _me_ …. _Please_.

He could feel his heart beating in his throat, _knew_ he was too visibly nervous again…

She held his gaze. And then she put the platter away, carefully placed it on the coffee table before them.

And then he held his breath, because she climbed into his lap, curled her hands against his temple, into his hair, brushing her nails against his scalp, and held his eyes.

He turned rigid, stiff and wooden beneath her. Puffed his breath out against her lips and stared right back, but didn't move.

One hand slipped out of his hair, and she curled her fingers against his cheek. With the smallest sigh she eyed his lips again, and he sighed right back as she leaned in.

Her kiss was sweet and slow, and his lips helplessly puckered to catch them. He hated the whimper that escaped his throat at the soft contact, the way he was such a mess for her.

It was when his tongue curled back into her mouth, and he'd been so sure he'd never feel that again just a few moments before, that he broke apart and groaned and shot his hands against her neck and the back of her head to press her harder against his mouth, and started to devour her the way he'd been allowed to do for weeks now.

She melted against him immediately, moaned that slow, turned on whine into his mouth that he coveted so, and he slipped down a little into the couch and nipped at her lip and fought her tongue and opened wide.

It slipped out of control really fast. Turned aggressively heated in a matter of seconds, almost desperate, both of them. He wanted to crawl into her mouth and keep her for himself forever. And she pushed back against him just as sharply as adrenaline spiked into him, made him desperate and yearning and wanting so much it ripped a hole in his chest because he wanted her so badly.

He wanted her, he wanted her, he wanted her. He wanted to love her and to cherish her and to keep her. He wanted to flip her around and bury himself in her and stay there forever. He wanted her to _want_ him there forever.

And then her hand was at his crotch and as if she'd pushed a panic button in his soul, his erection withered away in an instant.

He ripped his lips from hers and would have shouted at his ceiling had he not been flooded by mortification once more.

And then he shook her off. Didn't even look back.

"Mamo-chan—"

He fled into the bathroom.

What was wrong? What was _wrong_? What the _fuck_ was wrong with him?

He stared at his reflection as if it were a stranger. Black hair fell into panicked eyes. He was pale.

He turned the faucet and splashed water into his face. Then he groaned into a towel before he inhaled sharply and burst back out.

Usagi sat cross-legged where he'd sat. Golden hair glowing in the dim light of his room, roses all around her.

Her smile was terribly small, terribly unsure.

"So... I talked to Mina-P," she said carefully.

He inhaled sharply. The bathroom door looked terribly inviting once more.

But she patted the space in front of her with the most vulnerable eyes he'd ever seen on her and so no, he couldn't bolt, he needed to—

He sat down hesitantly.

"Go on..." he breathed.

She nodded, locked her jaw shut, and then she glared at him.

Right. Here came the firing squad. Goodbye.

"Untense," she said.

He almost physically moved in his confusion. "What?"

"Untense!" she threw his own words back at him again. Then her shoulders fell and her features smoothed into that softer look—

"Stop worrying about your performance," she said quietly.

He swallowed sharply.

"Like, like," she started, cringing. "I mean like… How do you expect to like, enjoy stuff if your mind is so occupied with what _I'm_ doing… Or something?"

It really wasn't unfair of course, throwing his own words back at him, even when she was totally right. But he didn't want her to be. And she had no idea what even—

"I can't shut that off," he admitted weakly.

She clasped her hands in her lap, started kneading them.

"I'm sorry if this… whole situation with me might be… intimidating?" she flicked her unsure eyes up and they shot him. "But… it's totally ok?"

He swallowed… He was mortified. He knew he was expected to talk but… how do you… TALK about these things…?

But she did the hard part for him and took over the talking it seemed, even if he wanted to disappear into his ugly green rug.

"If you're…" she blushed. "If you're scared of hurting me? You don't. Don't worry. I have a vibrator. And stuff. Which I use. Nothing would hurt there anymore, beyond like, you know..." she trailed off.

He swallowed, shook his head no, but stayed mute. He'd figured, of course. If he was familiar with _any_ part of this, it was the medical part - and he'd stopped worrying about that one since he'd first had his long fingers inside of her. Plus, she was relaxed enough, and she got very wet. As long as he didn't like, push in _dry_ like an asshole, or went too hard too fast, he knew he wouldn't hurt her. It wasn't actually _supposed_ to hurt, his podcast ladies had taught him. And he _didn't_ hurt her.

(He'd done a lot of things wrong. That wasn't one of them at least.)

Of course, there were a whole lot of other things he was _actually_ worried about that he didn't get his mouth open for, and the silence stretched so awkwardly between them, and so it seemed she had to, for him…

"So... um...If not that, then… Obviously I have no idea what I'm talking about but..." She brushed hair behind her ears that didn't need brushing back. "Well, Minako has this soapbox she keeps going on and on about. How, like," She blushed, and he felt himself blush in pure reaction to her blush.

She took a breath. "How like, she _hates_ that people always still stick to hearing the word 'sex', and it directly only means in and out penetration between a penis and a vagina? And how they might as well be headless."

He frowned.

Usagi huffed, closed her mouth, smacked her lips, then bit at it.

"She says that she like... would love if we stopped measuring sex and first times like that and found like... other markers. Like first orgasm with a partner for instance for everyone because also like... Are lesbians virgins if they don't like strap-ons or had a guy experience?"

He blinked. Wait… what? "Uh..."

And then his eyes widened because wait, did that mean she _knew_? Had she figured out he was a virgin, too?

Of course he knew that it might have been obvious, and yet he'd hoped… he'd hoped…

She blushed even harder, pushed imaginary hair behind her ear again. "I'm sorry. Is this weird?"

He opened his mouth and his voice didn't sound like his own.

"… just … I expected something else…"

She tilted her head and the little wisp of hair fell back from behind her ear. "What did you expect?" she asked carefully.

But Mamoru could only shrug helplessly…

She gave him a moment. It was obvious she was waiting for him to contribute to the conversation, but when he didn't, she took over again, and she looked so… _unsure_.

"Well… All I really have is Minako-education. But… according to that, I think we've been having sex for a while now. And if you're worried about it having been my first time at all, well, I think it really wasn't. And it's been VERY good for me for a while now…"

He held his breath.

She got even more visibly nervous. Picked at the threads at the hem of her skirt. "And…and I've been wondering and a little worried if you're like... not interested in actually getting any pleasure back from me?"

He recoiled. Frowned.

It made her fidget even more.

"I've been naked on you a lot now. But I never... you tend to push my hands away and...

I mean I get that I asked you for experience... And that maybe you'd think all I want is to get _off_ but… If that's the case and you don't…"

"That's not the case," he interrupted, and she looked at him in confusion.

But he didn't elaborate, and so she soldiered on, wavering voice and all.

"I know you agreed to _give_ me experience, and I also get that maybe you agreed to help me out but you aren't actually interested in like… _getting_ it, from like, someone as inexperienced as me and I… Anyway, just saying I… I'm _so_ sorry if I, like, pushed that on you and you didn't actually really want to? Like, maybe you don't WANT to have like, penetrative sex with someone you're not actually that _into_ and...and that's _ok_ and I shouldn't—"

"That's... really not it."

"Or if you just don't want penetrative sex period then please don't worry! Yes, I WOULD like the experience, but Mina-P said that— And if you don't like— I'm absolutely fine if you… just say the word and we'll stop and, and, you have no idea _how_ sorry—"

"I'm nervous." He blurted, and it ripped off her sentence. Her eyes flew up to his and stayed there, wide and unsure and that was all his fault, him and his nervousness and his failure and his inexperience and—

"It's not all that. At all. I just…" he swallowed. "I feel like I have to prove something," he confessed. And then was quick to continue, at least for a second, until his bravery fled him again. Wow, was this weird. "As your first, I... I feel like I..."

He swallowed again. She waited.

"Listen, I…" he started. Huffed. Tried again.

He _yanked_ his hand through his hair.

He settled on addressing her nervously fiddling hands, and not her eyes.

"Penetration isn't the part most women like," he finally said with a frown, and he desperately tried to sound like he actually knew what he was talking about, tried to be sincere even when there was this big thing he was lying through his teeth about…. Even if this was all true.

He tried again. Corrected himself. "Well, not exactly like women seem to _dislike_ penetration per se, at least I...um… hope but..."

He inhaled. Tried to calm down, and it sort of worked. He shrugged.

"Minako is right. People hear sex and they mean vaginal penetration. But that part alone can actually be really, really boring for many women?" He flicked his eyes up, and directly back to her hands. Her eyes were _watching_ and—

"That in and out friction most people understand sex as? It's the best and fastest way to get a penis off. Not a vulva. And I..."

God. He was babbling. He was talking from research, not experience, and _surely_ she—

He swallowed. Truth. Speak the truth.

"As your first, I'm worried you won't end up liking sex if I don't perform well," he breathed out and finally met her eyes. "It's a serious moment. You're giving up something precious to me. It leaves me with a lot of responsibility. I'm worried that I'll ruin it for you. Because it's quite likely you might not enjoy that part as much. And it'll be _my_ face associated with that for you and... I guess it already is and that… that worries me."

She let him trail off. Waited with a frown. Only when she felt he wouldn't go on, she spoke.

"Mamoru," she said, and he jumped.

It had been a while since she'd used anything other than 'Mamo-chan'…

"You've made me come how many times in the last week?" she asked, voice all back to challenge.

He just looked at her, settled back against the arm of his couch behind him.

She pursed her lips. "Would you say I'm a rather horny person?"

His brows furrowed, but he didn't answer.

"Because I am. Very horny."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Have you seen my sextoy drawer...?"

"I have," he said in an impatient tone. What did this even—

Her voice grew annoyed, like he didn't get what she was saying. "I already know I like sex," she shot out. "I like to indulge in lots of enjoyable things. Food. Sleep. Sex. I masturbate a lot. You're not breaking me in. Not like, literally. I already know I like sex. And I wouldn't own a dildo if I didn't already know I like penetration."

"Uh…"

"And excuse me, but _I'm_ responsible for my own decisions. And I asked you. And if I'd known you'd react weird just because I'm a virgin—"

"That's not—"

But she interrupted him again, and her tone softened.

"I'm nervous, too. It's ok that you're nervous, as well! In fact, it's kind of reassuring you get nervous, too!"

He exhaled.

"It makes me feel like I'm not an alien or something by getting nervous! That it's normal to be nervous if you still get nervous, too!"

He inhaled.

"And I… Well, I get this can be weird… especially if you think this is like… for me it's…" she huffed, trailed off, but this time, he felt like begging to have her finish the sentence. He felt there was something too important hiding in the pause.

"Well, I'm nervous, too. But… if it's because you came fast yesterday?"

She flicked her eyes back up and he felt put on the spot.

"You didn't judge me when I came like super fast, either," she said with a frown, and he was immediately absolutely taken aback.

His eyes felt huge. "Uh... why would I—"

"Yep," she interrupted with a glare. "Why would I!"

His eyebrows flew up to his hairline so hard the furrow in his brown strained.

"I actually felt a little proud!" she scolded, and he blinked, absolutely, utterly, taken aback. "Like…It must have been hot for you...?"

"…It was," he admitted.

"That was a pretty sweet feeling! I was _delighted_!" she implored like he was dumb. "I've been worried if this would be like, _any_ good for you with me—"

He looked at her, _horrified_ —

"—since, you know, only _I've_ been getting off? But like seeing how fast I made you come? That was like… such an ego boost? It was my 'first time'—" she made finger quotes "—after all. Knowing I must have been doing something right to get you off so fast, especially when I didn't manage that before _at all_ , and even when you have more experience than I do..."

His heart thumped.

Say it. Say it. ' _I don't. I don't have experience. That's why.'_ Easy.

_Say it._

(He didn't.)

"Anyway…" she trailed off, and watched her fingers, too. Then she swallowed. "Are you… are you sure that you actually still… want to do this? With me? It's not because you don't want to do this with me? You haven't changed your mind?"

"I'm very sure," he rapid-fire shot out.

Her eyes flew back to his.

"And… do you mind if I touch you, too?"

Truth. Say the fucking _truth_ , _goddammit_.

"I want to be touched by you so badly, it's really kind of pathetic," he confessed in a whisper.

And somehow that seemed to break something in her, or switch it on.

"Oh, good…" she breathed wide-eyed.

And then she flew back on top of him, and he had his arms full of Usagi as she moved to straddle him again, and his lips were back to being pressed against hers.

Really, she was a drug. And he was _so stupid_ —

_Stop it. Tell her everything. Tell her the truth._

_Tell her you love her._

She wasn't mad. She wasn't disappointed. This was working. This was still—

And then her fingers where at his shirt buttons, and he moved his own fingers to help her unbutton them frantically.

He _hissed_ when her lips met his chest. Whimpered, when her tongue moved down his sternum, nipped into his navel, absolutely _died_ when her teeth dug into his hip bone—

He threw his head back against the arm of his couch and _melted_ under her mouth on his fucking _skin_ and—

And then his eyes flew back open and he jumped under her when her hands fumbled with his belt.

Startled eyes met his and directly let go of his belt again.

He held them for a moment before he undid it for her. Held it even longer when she bit her lip and he lifted his hips – with her _on them still_ – and pushed both his pants and his boxer briefs down them just a bit, just to free his—

His cock sprung out, hard and red and impatiently twitching.

And then she moved _down_ on him and—

His heart was so fast it was painful.

She looked back up. "Can I…?"

And her mouth was _so close_ to— and—

"Not your mouth," he pushed out and wanted to swallow the words back down immediately, wanted to _slap himself_ for them.

 _How many fucking times_ had he _dreamed_ about her giving him a blowjob and here she was _offering_ it and his _idiot mouth_ just—

But he was worried how he'd taste. He was worried if she'd like it. He was sick of worrying.

"Oh, okay," she said easily, with a heart-breakingly accepting small smile and a tilt of her head.

"Well..." she raised her hand and waited.

"Ok," he breathed.

The second her hand engulfed him, he hissed—

She looked back up. He bit his lip.

Her eyes were apologetic even when she smiled with one eye closed, and her _hand_ was on his _cock_.

 _Usagi's_ _hand_.

"I'm… I've never done this."

"I know," he hissed out through his teeth.

"I…" she said, but then she just went for it with a little _shrug_ , and pumped her hand up.

He bit down harder and grunted at the ceiling.

"No!" she yelped.

He whipped his eyes back to hers, bewildered. She was closer now – she'd moved back up along his body, was watching his face – his cock in her _hand_ between them.

"Don't hold back please?" she asked, her eyes jumping between both of his. "I want to see you."

The breath he exhaled _shook_ , but he held her gaze, and tried to fucking untense so he could show her.

She moved her hand again, and he shuddered and arched just that little bit off the couch, with her on top of him, and she smiled.

She did it again and his breath was doing funny things.

But he kept eye-contact and it was the most intimate thing he had _ever_ experienced…

She moved her hand up, across his tip, and he kind of fell apart, strung too tight, and she licked her lips and drank it all up.

 _God_ , if she'd just—

He lifted his hips into her hand and immediately jerked them back.

She smiled that small, half-proud, half-unsure smile again. "Am I… doing that right?"

He shuddered when she moved back down. "Uh…"

She bit her lip, watching. "Can you show me?"

He hesitated, just for a moment, licked his lips and held her eyes and then he covered her hand with his.

Keeping fierce, unblinking eye contact, he slowed her down, made her grip him tighter, moved her hand to rub the skin upwards and over the tip and—

And started falling over his breath as he started to pant, but held her eyes.

He was going to come embarrassingly fast again, he just knew it. This was too good. This was too intense. This was like something straight from his wet dreams.

But he held her eyes. She was watching him like he was the most interesting subject in the world, and she looked so, so—

He blindly fumbled with her clothes with his free hand, the one that _wasn't_ moving her perfect little hand across his cock and what even _was_ this fantasy-land?!

His hand moved clumsily beneath her skirt, yanking it up, and _yanked_ her panties inside to touch her, too—

"Mamo-chan!"

She was _wet_. This whole situation was turning her on, _too_ —

Her eyes were scolding, even when she shuddered when he dipped two fingers around her entrance to wet them, then moved them up to furiously circle around her clit—

"Let me," he begged, forcing his eyes to stay open even as he pumped her hand faster up and down his cock. "Please," he whimpered.

Her exhale shuddered across his lips as she bit her own lip, and she nodded – and so, he moved his thumb to brush along her clit, then focused on the right side of it. He did everything he'd learned in the past few days that worked her up in record speed, was never prouder of his fucking fingers.

He had her panting in unison with him in about a minute.

He made her come on his fingers when he was only two knuckles deep, his thumb working her clit slow and hard and—

And he exploded into her hand. Warm and sticky and absolutely fucking real.

Such a strange and crazy intimate sensation, watching each other come, eyes forced open and focussed and _consuming_. His mouth open and panting and trying to reach hers, her cheek against the cushions above him, mouth dropped open, lower lip trembling around shuddering breaths, eyes so deliciously half lidded and yet fixed on his.

She collapsed on top of him and he hugged her. Pushed his hand around her butt and kneaded one cheek possessively.

His. Today she was his.

He curled his hands into her hair, pressed her face against his throat and sighed in purest contentment.

"Was that good?" she asked with a cheeky, proud smile when she'd started to catch her breath, and he felt her move her hand to his pants and shamelessly rub her sticky palm on it, and he chuckled.

"Very," he laughed.

He was pretty sure he'd never felt so elated in his _life_ —

But it was a bit later, when he'd calmed and maybe even fell asleep for a second – he wasn't really sure – when she curled herself against him, on top of him, sighed so prettily and reached for a fucking piece of nigiri on his coffee table that he decided they weren't done yet, his cock just had to fucking deal.

She shrieked, laughing, when he lifted her. Got up and carried her to the bed as if she weighed nothing – what was superhero work-out for if you couldn't toss the woman of your dreams around with your pinky and pin her everywhere you wanted?

"Mamo-chan…" she purred.

And damn it did it seem to turn her on.

He had a girl to fuck.

He tossed her into his bed, and she bit the side of her lip and watched him, white teeth brushing along that plump, perfect skin and pressing down until her lip popped back out, free and kissable and waiting.

"What are you doing?" she asked with half-lidded eyes, head bouncing off his pillow.

After he'd gotten rid of his underwear, he yanked at her shirt.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" he whispered against her lips when he'd gotten it off her, then kissed down her neck, behind her ear, down and in the way she liked—

She whimpered. His hands moved to her skirt and she moved with him in impatient, wide-eyed, eager contortions.

"Help me out," he breathed, and before he even finished speaking, she'd already lifted her hips right off his mattress and way higher than necessary to help him along to get it all off her, then arched out her chest when she made short work of her bra.

His cock was back to twitching, waking at the sight of those perfect, perky breaths falling once more from their confinement.

He left her panties on. She liked to be touched through them and that's what he would do.

Her knees popped open like a present and he moved his boner to press against the fabric. The resulting gasp from her lips he immediately moved to catch and swallow and she _keened_ against his invading tongue.

He pressed her – heavy and solid – down into his mattress and the way she gasped and mewled against his harsh kisses in ways that were new— (they weren't on his scale!) he was half sure he was doing it right this time.

And so he rolled his hips against her, ground his cock up and down her soaked panties until she whined deep in her throat and arched her back to press almost frantically back against him, but never freed her mouth, kept kissing her like this was his last chance to ever do so and make it fucking count.

She ripped her lips from his when she couldn't take it anymore, gasped for breath against his jugular and writhed her hips against him.

She was the most fucking beautiful sight in the world, worked up and _gasping_ –

"Mamo-cha—an."

–gasping his _name_.

He thrust his cock against the hollow in her panties and she _whimpered_ —

And then her own hand moved down her body, nudging him off momentarily with a strength that kept surprising him, and slipped down into her panties and started to furiously rub and _he_ whimpered—

He rocked back against her, bit the inside of his cheek when the wet fabric of her panties _moved_ against the sensitive and weeping head of his cook under her rapid movements in there.

He sat up – he needed to _watch_ this.

And it was a really, really good thing he'd come before, or it would have taken all of his willpower not to come at the sight otherwise.

Usagi. Tsukino fucking Usagi was masturbating with her fingers in her panties and his cock poking the fabric ever so slightly against her entrance.

He stilled, mesmerized. Her lip disappearing back between her teeth but she watched him back—

She bucked her hips against him, impatient. And he changed his previous rolling motion to taps with his wet tip against her panties, smack, smack, smack against her wet entrance, his fist at the base of his cock, his own lip trapped between his teeth as well.

Her chest was flushed and so were her cheeks, her mouth and her lips trembling around the deep, throaty puffs of air and barely audible moans that escaped it, and her breasts moved with her harsh breaths to the movement of her fingers rubbing and rubbing and rubbing, and ever so slightly jostling the hopelessly damp fabric his tip was set against again and again and again.

Rubbing in exactly the same circles he did to her before and it fucking _thrilled_ him—

It was the most erotic thing he'd ever seen. Nothing whatsoever compared. She was _stunning_ and unapologetic and he was so hard and her panties so _wet_ and—

He hissed, and poked his dick against her just once, because he couldn't _not_ , before going back to tapping.

But then she slipped her panties aside and he kind of wanted to weep. Fabric chafed against his tip and was replaced by warm and wet and oh, _fuck_ —

When he tapped now, his tip slipped against her entrance. Catching. Wet and hot and _smack_ – back up. And yet he pretended they were still there. Shallow taps against her entrance and determined to keep going until she begged him to do _anything_ else. It _consumed_ him and demanded all his willpower not to _thrust_ —

But he didn't. Shallow taps against her, even when his breathing came ragged through his teeth and so was hers. Eyes wide as they watched each other.

It did remind him to lean over though, and she whined at the change in angle and the forced pause, her fingers moving faster and impatient. He knocked something over in haste but blindly found the little round vase he'd stored a whole bunch of condoms in.

"No!" she whined with moving fingers, and he froze.

"I'm on the pill!" she reminded him, breathing hard. "And it's a safe day. Don't move away, please, it's too good." she moaned out.

"I'll last longer," he argued helplessly, his cock _twitching_ at her entrance.

"I don't care," she breathed.

Quick and fierce, her fingers were at her clit now, circling right on top only to quickly slip down around his tip and back to her clit almost immediately. But with it, she'd pulled her labia apart, brushing her thumb into the side with a flick and bucked her hips, and the movement wrapped her lips snug around his cock and caused him to slip in _just_ that little bit, just the tip, even though he changed absolutely nothing himself. He whimpered, but kept going. He changed nothing, not a thing; shallow taps. But he grunted pitifully and squeezed his eyes shut for just a second, because he was doing that ever so little INSIDE of her now, and it was hard to deal with. Just the tip, just barely.

The pace of her fingers at her clit was relentless now. His fingers gripped the base of his cock too harshly, trying to control himself. When he forced his eyes back open right away, she was _watching_ him with those dark, delirious bedroom eyes and lips that trembled with ever harsh puff of breath and shit, shit, _shit_.

"Please," she whimpered – _finally_ – and he broke.

With one shuddering groan from them both, he sunk slowly all the way inside of her.

He exhaled and stayed in. Just a bit, pressing deeper and deeper against her without really moving.

This was everything he ever wanted. This was the only woman he would _ever_ want, and one of his hands clamped around her thigh opening her wider and the other flew to rest on her cheek and tilting her face to look at him because he HAD to see her, he had to see if he was doing good, and even when his head was exploding he regained his control and _grit_ his teeth and meant to slip out.

He moved a little. Not pulling out completely, not at all, and slowly rolled his hips back against hers. She gasped, rolled her eyes back into her head and focused back on him, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. Then, _then_ , he wanted to move out.

If he teased her entrance between thrusts, every thrust would feel like the first. That's what the podcast ladies had promised. That would mix it up.

But he never got to do that, because she kept on rubbing and suddenly she came – and it _attacked_ him. Fluttering and spasming and contracting around him as she gasped and arched her back right off the bed and against his hips and _shiiitttt_ —

He thrust. And thrust. And she was coming on his cock and oh shit, fucking _damn_ —

He stopped when she came down from her high. When she collapsed limp on the bed and her hands fell to his mattress light weights. He was _so_ hard, but he would be hard for this woman forever. This was the moment he'd waited for so long and he didn't want to miss a second.

Her breath was harsh but slowing, her face and chest flushed red and everything in him was _beating_ —

Her walls still fluttered around him, just that little bit.

And he stared and stared into her eyes and she stared right back.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go, as previously warned, one TED talk about penetration mixed into a fic and also they finally made it where she wanted to get to lol. Also forever thanks to my hero of a beta Uglygreenjacket because I'm throwing lots of words at her and she's def got less time than me, I'M SO SORRY; LOVE! And also thanks to Antigone2 who helped me tons with that game they played (which was a lot of fun lol!)
> 
> Also, if I stick to my outline, which I have so far, this fic is gonna be 3 more chapters long and most likely an epilogue on top - just so you're warned, we're coming to a close, slowly!
> 
> Anyway, I'm working on this fic as fast as I can now that life gets crazy! Please send help in form of reviews, lol!


	9. Frenzy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here you go with a chapter of pretty much all smut lol - they're in that wonderful, wonderful phase in the beginning of things where you're so horny you can go all the time and they do that a huge amount of much lol, so, be prepared I guess. Plus, after telling you guys for 9 chapters that penetration isn't all it's hyped up to be I feel responsible for showing you a version how us sex researchers say it CAN actually be very, very pleasurable for (about 7 out of 10) women after all lol. So anyway XD.
> 
> It's also my birthday today so be nice to me ;)

* * *

The Unintentional Seduction of Chiba Mamoru  
Chapter 9: Frenzy

* * *

He wanted to keep her.

He'd gotten a taste of what it meant to have her and he behaved like a possessive, nymphomaniac caveman. He was the moth to the flame, he was running to her out of breath and with open, hungry arms. He would never be able to let her go and and he needed to show her as long and as best as he could, it was his only chance. He was drowning in her.

And somehow, she was very willingly along for the ride. She kept coming _back_. She kept _never leaving—_

He was drunk on her and if she let him, he would keep doing this forever.

And somehow, she let him.

She'd let him day after day after day now.

This would kill him in the end. He was sure of that. She would go and be with her mystery idiot-man and he would be left behind and every single corner of his life would smell like her.

And yet, he kept making sure that every last refuge he had would forever remind him of her like a masochistic moron.

He would have to move to a new apartment when this was over.

The first time he pulled her into his shower, days into their frenzy, he knew full well he could never be in his bathroom again without thinking of her moans, without thinking of his hands traveling her wet, willing skin as he lathered her in soap and suds, without thinking of his fingers spreading wide as they slipped against every slick surface he could reach, across her collarbones, across hardened, peaking nipples that jutted into his hands as she arched her back to press them more firmly against his touch.

It was already his most painful memory of them all. He could never have sex again after her. He would always be back in that shower in his mind if he did.

He hadn't thought sex could be like this. Make him so hungry and leave him so wanting, still, forever.

This would never be enough.

But she'd come into his shower so very, very willingly. Eyes so excited, lips so enticingly seducing. The way she grinned at him so mischievously, teeth brushing along her lower lip and eyelashes flicking up at him.

He'd stood no chance. He never had.

* * *

"Don't you want to make me beg for you, again?" she'd whispered in his ear, her voice a low purr, her eyelashes flicking up at him when she'd knelt on top of him and stripped out of his shirt that she'd been wearing with nothing underneath.

* * *

And so, he'd slicked soaped hands across the somehow both soft-and-firm skin of her tummy, brushing past the precious, soft pouch of her abdomen and down towards the slick, slick haven among soft, golden curls that so begged to be touched, judged by a whimper pressed through her teeth, the back of her neck falling back against the crook of his shoulder as he wrapped himself completely around her and pressed her against the tiles.

She was so wet. So, so, very wet and he groaned into her throat, into her wet, glorious golden hair cascading down across his chest in rivulets and shining like fine silk in the water, and his fingers pressed against her slit and circled her entrance just so briefly, just until she keened and arched her back. And because she was _so wet,_ the movement caused his fingers to slip inside with mind-melting ease as if it were slipping home almost accidentally once more, and teased the nerves just around it until she whimpered, her hips moving restlessly against his hand but he couldn't have that, not yet, and he chuckled at her adorably frustrated growl as he withdrew.

* * *

"I thought you _always_ wanted me to beg," she'd purred into his ear when she'd pinned him down, earlier, before he'd helplessly pulled her to the bathroom.

Before she'd stood under the shower spray and made him _watch._ Until he was on his knees in front of her, until she'd worked herself up with the spray of the shower head and the water pebbling against her nipples, and made him watch but he couldn't touch, until she surrendered and it was his turn to drive her just as wild.

Because he knew this now. She'd told him, breathless and underneath him in the dark. That he'd started to invade her dreams of that unworthy moron. That he'd said these words to her that day at the matsuri, and she'd gone home and come to it later in her dreams, dreams she'd had of _him_ – and the thought alone had made him her willing, panting slave.

He wanted so desperately to re-enact every single one of her dreams for her if she would let him. He wanted to act them all out and make it better than she'd imagined in the first place, until he replaced _every_ last single dream and thought she had of that undeserving fool with thoughts of him instead.

"Make me beg, Mamo-chan. Make me beg until I can't take it anymore."

She hadn't known what she was asking for. He'd trained to play this game with her for years.

If Mamoru knew to do one thing, it was how to make Tsukino Usagi scream at him.

* * *

He did. He'd teased all the spots except the ones she wanted and then he did it all again with those, working her up and then stopping until she almost calmed, only to work her up again and again.

Everything before had been child's play, every previous 'please' he'd elicited from her in the days before - they were all just a test to this game right here.

He made her scream it, pressing her against the tiles, breathing down her neck, made her shiver even when the water that fell around them was steaming hot, so hot it was flushing her skin until it was so sensitive it made her tremble, and then he did it more.

He did it until he couldn't help it. One buck and he was inside, just the tip because he'd _learned_ this, just the tip because she _liked_ it, because she _hated_ it, because it drove her absolutely _mental_ , and she shouted and shifted and tried to wriggle back against him, getting him to MOVE but his palms skipped to her waist and he pressed firmly – pressed her against the cold tiles and away from the rest of his cock, trying desperately to remain in control, trying to work himself down because his cock was twitching against her, dripping and heaving, and he couldn't HAVE this yet, this was too good, he needed more, this couldn't end yet.

"Please," she cried, because this was a game now, this was their _thing_ now, and he was winning it, and she was jerking against his hold. "Please, please, please."

Her bucking caused him to slip inside just a little further and it was his time to shout as he felt her clenching soft and slick around his tip, and he wrenched his hips back and removed himself from her completely and she growled, fists clenching. "Please. _Please_ , Mamo-chan. _Please_!"

He moved one hand from her hip to the small of her back, pressing firmly to keep her against the wall, grabbed the base of his cock with the other and pushed the tip back against her to her relieved outcry. But he couldn't yet, and so he stroked his cock along her slit slowly but hard, the tip catching in her folds and moving up to her clit and back down to her entrance, over and over, and slipped inside just a millimetre before rubbed himself back against her in slow, sticky circles, and he still had to hiss his breath through his teeth and press harder against her back because she was squirming so hard and mewled so loud, trying desperately to thrust back against him.

She _hissed_ at him. Hissed right back at him and she was so WET and it was perhaps the longest he'd ever held back in this now so familiar game of tease, the longest he'd ever managed to not break when he worked her up, and was rewarded with the fact that he was sure, so _sure_ she'd never ever been this soaked.

It was the first time today that he cursed the water and the soap, because he wanted to see it dripping down her legs and onto his cock and make him a mess as he plowed into her eventually.

Which he hadn't yet. And he couldn't. He wouldn't last a second.

And, oh, the _noise_! Drenched, wet smacks only heightened by the slickness of their skin, and so downright obscene between her shameless begging moans and the friction of his cock sliding up and down and up and down across her slit, nestled between her hot, coating lips. Her fluttering, clenching muscles gripping him when he dipped inside just that tiny little bit, trying to keep him prisoner, trying to draw him further in.

He felt his balls tighten and his chest ache and the pleasure coiled in him so tight and aching. He was a cracking dam against the blinding flood, and he jerked his hips back, away from her with a strangled whimper and she whimpered with such frustration he wondered if she might start to cry.

That golden hair he'd obsessed about since he was a teenager, wet and _in his showe_ r, her bangs sticking against her forehead, her hair slicked back and running down like its own golden waterfall and brushing against his skin, and her mouth just ever so slightly pouted as she looked back up at him, craning her neck around to him, and shit _fuck_ he doubted she would ever look sexier than in this moment right here, and he felt it as a pulse straight through his balls.

He replaced his cock with his fingers immediately, slipping back against her clit and it was warmer than it was before. He moved them across her in an erratic, hurried, breakneck pace until her back arched and her plump, wet butt pushed back against him as far as she was able, and her head fell back against his shoulder, hair flopping wet against him, face angled up at him and he could _look_ at her like this – her clouded, half-lidded, tortured eyes finding his, her lower lip captured by her teeth in a sloppy grip that threatened to come undone with every pant puffing out shuddering breaths of air between it.

A shiver ran through him at the look in her eyes, wanton and frustrated and begging for him, and he felt it throbbing in his veins and twitching in his impatient, frustrated cock, and he flicked his wrist and balled his slick, slick fingers into a fist, so that now it were his knuckles rubbing across her as his lips moved to free her abused lower lip from the stronghold of her teeth to suck it into his mouth right along with her stuttering, keening gasps. They were so precious he wanted to bottle them, so turned on and frantic and she twitched her hips towards his hand, wriggling desperately against his fist and his cock at the small of her back.

He was going to fuck her. For the first time, he was going to really, actually, totally fuck her. And for her to enjoy it as much as he did, he needed her so very much on the brink that the indirect stimulation and pressure of him doing just that would be enough to push her over. He needed her ready to explode before he ever really pushed in. And he was getting there really, really well.

He uncurled one finger from his fist as his knuckles moved against her in rapid fire, firm movements, and he shifted his hand again, this time to plunge his middle finger down her slit until the pad of it pushed against her soaking entrance, and he rubbed.

Her teeth now fluttered around his lip, her mouth still captured by his and her whimpers broke that impossibly cadence of desperate that wrecked him as he shoved his tongue between her lips and into her hot mouth, shrugging his shoulder upwards so that her head lay jammed against it in an attempt to bring her mouth closer to his lips. It was an awkward, almost uncomfortable move, but it did what he wanted it to do and trapped her face against his lips.

As if on cue, with the next flick, and because he _knew_ her now, he knew her every reaction, he knew how to play her, he felt her start to softly flutter around his fingers, felt her face scrunch up and her thighs wobble and he pressed her closer to the tiles with his hips, his hand still pressed into the small of her back.

And when his mouth detached from hers with a wet smack he was greeted with the view of her soapy, wet breasts smushed against his porcelain tiles and he got so ridiculously jealous of the fucking wall it was ludicrous.

Jealous. It was his constant curse these days and it thrummed through his veins.

His. She was his. _He_ was doing that to her. It was his cock she was bucking up against. No one else's. His.

He knew he was slowly losing his marbles here. That it was getting worse with every taste of her, with every secret he pulled from her skin and never wanted anyone else to ever know. He knew that.

And he also knew how close she was, her eyes scrunching closed and her jaw falling open at the same time and no, he couldn't have that yet. He couldn't.

He _needed_ to keep her balanced on that edge.

He shifted, retracting his fingers from her completely and her eyes popped open in outrage and frustration, her pupils completely dilated and he knew she wanted to call him every insult from her book, but her words were slurred, her groans too harsh to form them.

"Arunfff." There she was, Odango Atama in the flesh. Wet and in his shower, impatient and furious with him and so deliriously overstimulated, flushed that shade of red in anger that managed to make his blood boil and curl and sing at his answering smirk.

He shifted again, and her eyes now popped in a different look. Anger not completely gone, but drowned by unadulterated want as his cock slid back down the cheeks of her ass and settled back between her folds with a jut and a constant twitch.

Almost directly, desperately, her twitching increased tenfold and so did his pressing hand against the small of her back, and had her lips still been attached to his, he was half sure she'd have bitten him by now, judged by the snarl thrown into the general direction of his ever widening smirk angled down towards her face.

But her gaze became unhinged, slipping with her eyes drooping closed and opening only half-lidded with every twitch of his dick against her and every accompanying gasp of hers.

"No," he rasped out, hand slick with her arousal flying up to her chin and slipping down her cheek to fist into her hair. "Look at me."

Her eyes shot open and held his, and she stilled beneath his hips in anticipation even when his other hand finally let go of the small of her back to reach between them and grasp his cock – and he knew she felt it against the cheeks of her ass even if her eyes didn't waver, he knew she felt it because she imprisoned that lush lip once more.

The whimper from her lips was so soft, so, so, soft, so achingly desperate for him when his cock once again slipped between her cheeks so deliciously easily, slick and coated and dripping and ready for _him_.

"What do you want?" he almost growled.

"Hgggn," she whimpered

"Usako. What do you want?" he panted, breathless and pressed and wildly unhinged.

"Y-You. Fuuu—"

He shuddered. "What do you want?"

"Your cock," she screamed, broken and hoarse, and it echoed strangely off his tiles and got drowned by the rushing water. "Fucking me."

"Whose cock," he hissed, shaking his shoulder and it shook her. "Say my name."

"Mamo-chan's," she groaned, "Mamo-chan's cock. I want Mamo-chan's _co_ —" She gurgled the rest as he finally, finally plunged himself home and set a pace so fast it rocked her whole body. But her hips were now freed from his hold and she gave back like she received, and his eyes rolled back in his head because she shifted her arms against the tiles and pushed herself back from them to thrust back against him.

"Harder," she growled and his hands flew to her hips to dig into them tightly, and if it weren't for the water dripping down his hair and down, drip-drip-dripping right onto the small of her back and running their path down towards the cheeks of her ass and towards where they were joined in their frantic, lunatic rut, giving him something to concentrate on, something to focus on, it would have already been over.

He could feel his heartbeat in his teeth, could sense the coiled white wall lurking just behind his eyelids somewhere in his gut, but he didn't WANT to yet, he didn't EVER—-

This was the first time he was truly fucking her true to the word. The first time he allowed his cock to push in fast and back out and back in again, over and over without intermittently pulling out in strategic intervals. The first time he felt her walls clench and flutter around him without interruption as he slipped so slick and soft out of her and back into her and it was driving him insane. No kidding, this was heaven for a cock. And it was also the most exhausting thing he'd ever done.

This wouldn't last long.

But it had all worked. She was _enjoying_ it, she _wanted_ it, she was coming apart and letting go, and with a soft cry from her lips, she shifted and threw her body back against his chest, stilling her own thrusts, and it changed the angle and everything about it. Now he was free to slip his arms around her chest and pinch his fingers into her soapy, slippery breasts. Was free to press his lips against her throat and feel her heartbeat there, as frantic as his if not more as she stilled and tensed in his arms, her mouth falling open in a silent scream against his hair and her knees giving out.

But he supported all her weight and thrust into her, slower now, gentler now, over and over with the rhythm of her clenching walls around him, determined to ride it out for her as long as possible until she finally relaxed and then, and only then, did he let go and allow himself to come.

It was a blinding flash that pulsed out his cock and into her and he felt it coating her and filling her and marking her and dripping out of her and down her legs, and it was primal and horrible but it burned into his heart to stay with him forever. She was all he ever wanted and this was the most intense orgasm he'd ever had and he felt it in his bones, in the ache in the muscles of his neck, in the cramp in his hands and thighs and pumping through the roof of his mouth and the force of his heavy panting.

"Fuck," he pressed out.

"Wow," she agreed, breathless.

It was a while before the world came back, before the sound of the running shower felt once again loud, washing away milky white and cleaning her of him right under his eyes even if he wanted it all to stay painted on her forever like the fucking caveman he apparently now was.

She collapsed against him and he held her, hugged her from behind and buried his face in her neck with his legs bent at that uncomfortable angle he'd held for too long now to make this position work but he didn't care. He panted into her throat and reached around her to shut the water off.

And then they didn't move. Her breasts moved against his arms around her with her labored, calming breath and his wasn't much better yet, moving the small, tiny, quickly drying locks of stray, shorter hair around her ear as he panted into her neck, causing goosebumps to ripple across her drying skin and he could feel her muscles contract around his softening cock still buried deep inside of her.

He only moved when she started to shiver. Wrapped her in a towel and rubbed another one into her hair and stared so helplessly into her eyes she must have been able to read his soul.

She fell asleep on him that night, his fingers carding through her damp hair until the sky was changing back to a lighter shade of dark blue. Her hot breath puffing against his collarbones over and over through her open mouth as she shifted on top of him, his curtains fluttering in the wind through his open balcony door, and he adjusted the sheets on top of her when he felt her shiver on him once more.

He wanted to keep her. He wanted to keep her so badly.

* * *

Ultimately, the height of their sex craze lasted for five manic days.

She was drunk on this. She was high on him. She was lost in delirium and it felt like a rushing river in her mind and like the fiercest addiction she could ever imagine. This primal, insatiable need that would not be satisfied if she didn't come back for more and more and more.

She'd babbled the observation out two mornings after she'd found herself tossed into a bed of roses, two mornings that she'd woken up in that same bed only to move back onto that cock of his and whimpered in needy, horny abandon to get even more of him. Always, always more.

"I think I'm high. I can't get enough," she'd gasped into his mouth when he'd finally entered her again, rolled his hips into her in that slow, slow and deliciously deep pace, moved his hips so he would hit her clit each time. The taste of his tongue, the smell of his skin, the deep, low, deliciously rumbling moans that vibrated through his whole body when she touched him where he liked to be touched, found his secret places like he'd found hers, the smack of skin on skin, of his balls smushed against her as he was buried to the hilt – it was all so addicting.

"You are," he'd moaned into her collarbone, tongue flicking out to taste her skin as he kept moving in that slow, slow rhythm that she wanted him to do to her forever. What did the outside world matter if she could have this forever?

He'd babbled things about her brain, then. How it was drowning in hormones. Used fancy words for brain regions and neuro-transi-somethings in areas of her brain that were there for feeling rewarded and happy and hella horny and it drove her libido wild and his too, and that's why they were fucking chained to his bed but who was complaining?

When he said it wouldn't last – that this was normal but very short-lived, how dicks didn't _actually_ work this way longterm and libidos neither, and also why they _shouldn't_ – she felt like clinging even harder and rolled him over to ride him and _grind_ on him until his eyes rolled back into his head. She didn't want this to ever end. She couldn't _imagine_ herself to ever want this to end.

She felt sorry for him, sometimes. Unbeknownst to him, he was having sex with a superhero with superhero stamina. A superhero who'd been thirsty for _ages_ and who _finally_ got her fill. She felt that made her hunger even more unfillable, and yet he was doing everything to fill it.

They'd worked themselves through his stash of condoms in the little black, round vase on his nightstand at his insistence but when his hand went in and came out empty, they hushed quiet murmurings of reassurances. Reassurances of yes, she really was on the pill and yes, she did take it the right way, and a promise he was healthy that she'd never doubted – she trusted her doctor. And so, from then on, they went without. And _oh boy_.

And then he'd formally introduced her to lube, with that boyish smile that had recently started blooming on his face and she couldn't get enough of, and that gentlest brush of his fingers along her folds, and he'd proven to her that _yes_ , even though she got plenty wet herself, she'd never roll her eyes at Minako's tirades again. It was all true, lube was fucking magic, there could never be enough lube, and what the _fuck_ how did it _do_ that? How was this even _better_?

That first morning after she'd been so late to work, she'd missed a meeting and gotten a scolding by her boss. The second day in a row that she'd worn the same clothes, her boss had gotten off her dick and only knowingly smiled. Then came the weekend and she never _left_ Mamoru's bed again.

Except that one time when she forced herself to go home and get a change of clothes and update a curious roommate and it had been _excruciating_ –

Her welcome back kiss had been immediate when she walked back through his door and turned into a welcome back kiss with lots of tongue pressed to her sex against the wall in his hallway and a leg thrown over his shoulder.

And then, later that night, she'd made him take her to his shower for the sex of her fucking life.

And whenever his magic, sex-hormone-drugged dick _actually_ couldn't fuck her anymore, he just used his hands and tongue again, and damn did she like his tongue. It was one very, very attentive tongue.

She was one giant, needy orgasm by now. And still somehow, it was never enough.

And how could there be enough? There was still so much to explore of him. And she was allowed to do that now. She was allowed to touch and investigate and she did.

She found out that he _really_ liked it when she gave him hickeys in an intensity that was surprising to her and she wondered what it was about it that got him so. She found out that he was squirmish but hard-really-fast when she ventured even _near_ his butt. She sat between his legs and discovered the little seam in his skin that went all the way from beneath his testicles up to his cock. The one that wrinkled and moved the skin of his balls when she stroked it and which aroused him a whole lot when she did that, and she rolled her eyes at him when even while his breath became quite ragged over her continued attention to it, he explained to her like the nerd he was why it was there and how genitals were all the same cleft in the womb starting out and this was where it all grew together for men when they were the size of a strawberry so it wouldn't be a vagina.

And then he'd flip her over on her stomach and sit on her thighs and smear lube against her wet vagina with that gentle touch and enter her from behind, and it was somehow the best thing she'd ever experienced, and _wow_ did he feel perfect in her in this new angle, what the _fuck_.

And all those sweet moments in between. When he rubbed that towel through her shower damp hair with that absolutely smitten smile, and made her breakfast in his underwear. When he traced his fingers over her naked belly when she was half-asleep and lying naked in his bed with undone hair and chipped nail polish on her toes and nothing else to cover her but his hands.

When she lay on his chest and he played with her hair – sometimes for what felt like _hours_ —

Or when he'd shoot her that blushing, sheepish, boyish grin that was so absolutely _wrecking_ her whenever he brushed his hands along her skin to clean warm, strayed jizz off of her, or those times he'd get up and return with a warm washcloth and a touch so gentle and caring it kind of broke her heart.

Or the _things_ he sometimes said—

She wasn't even sure he was always quite aware of saying them.

Like that evening on Sunday where she couldn't take it anymore, even when she wanted it and she hadn't even needed to say it, he'd just somehow known and instead he'd just kissed her for an hour and moaned these _things_ against her lips, her breasts, her belly, her skin.

"I'm never gonna get you out of my mouth," he'd croaked into her mouth, mindless, reverent, panting. "I'm going to taste you forever."

She died a little every time he said things like that and came back wanting him even more.

And it hurt a little. Or a lot, if she was being honest to herself. He said these things in a way that reminded her that this was all very temporary. In a way that insinuated he was absolutely sure this always _would_ be temporary. That they'd eventually be a memory to each other. That this was an arrangement, nothing more.

She hadn't _actually_ asked him to _be_ with her, and he wasn't asking to change that.

Even when it so often and so blindingly looked like he _genuinely_ wanted her, even though he wasn't asking her to be his right out.

It didn't help that the looks he gave her, the ones he sometimes tried so hard to school away, were so... gutted. Wrecked. He sometimes looked at her like she the was both the solution and the poison to every of his thoughts, in those moments when she got so close, puffed down his neck in what she told herself was something she could stop doing if she wanted, she _could, honestly_ – even when she could never refrain because it made him shiver and mewl so pitifully and gave her these pangs throbbing deep inside that she had the power to do _this_ to _Mamoru-baka of all people_ and wipe that infuriating smirk so clean off his face.

_Never get a boyfriend, my ass._

Or that time the tables had finally turned and she had _him_ panting in the shower that second time they'd shared one and it made her feel so powerful it filled her up – when he was looking at her like she was his oasis and like she was breaking him, when _she_ teased _him_ until he _begged_ her to do it, when he _finally_ gave in and let her taste him.

It was so thrilling, so arousing, seeing him come apart because of her, seeing him begging to touch her, begging her to have her way with him, to do to him whatever she wanted. It was intoxicating and she was helpless against it.

"Please," he'd cried out wetly, reverently, _again_ , cock twitching in front of her hot breath so dreadfully needy, and she'd cursed the water belting down on him from the shower head because she would never know if she'd actually made him cry with her teasing.

"I'll do anything. I'll _be_ your anything, just—"

And then he'd _howled_ when she'd finally wrapped her lips around his cock and swirled her tongue around the swollen tip and she'd been so disappointed that it only tasted like shower water, and curled her fingers into his balls until he wrenched his cock from her mouth and came grunting and whimpering against the shower tiles.

Or all those precious moments after they'd both come and everything around them was calming down and he grasped her face in his hands and looked at her as if he tried to read her face.

Those moments when her breath was still coming harshly, when her heartbeat was still like a gong in her chest, pounding deafening against her ribcage and moving her whole body in its quick, quick, frantically violent beat, when her harsh pants pushed against his equally harsh puffs of breath against her mouth and when her eyes were probably as wide as his.

He always looked almost… scared… in these moments.

This time, in this moment, she swallowed thickly, barely possible over the searing need for oxygen in her lungs, gasping, and it was her this time who brought her fingers up to his face first, cringing apologetically, too late, when she realised they were sticky and slick and…

But he just curled a small smile onto his lips and did the same, almost – rubbed his fingers against his side first but when they touched her they were still clammy and sweaty and just that little bit sticky too, all the same.

But that was HER on them and it made her rush back into maddening coiling... something in her belly. Needy, making her wet even though he was still IN her – and then he started to trace her jaw, even as her own fingers cupped his cheeks, the pads of her fingers ghosting across the soft skin underneath his eyes, stretching across his cheekbones.

She exhaled long and winded, a whimpered sigh of relief when his lids slowly lowered and his face descended on hers, and his tongue in her mouth just tasted so _good_ and like it belonged there, and he pressed down against her and claimed her.

Those long, deep kisses, those longing looks. Those tender eyes, swimming with emotion, the way he leaned down with worship on his lips and it made her own eyes burn. Those sweet chaste brushes of his lips and his cheeks on her face, her ear, her temple, smelling her, breathing her in, his flaccid cock still inside of her and that one time not flaccid anymore right away and shocking her.

Those fingers on her cheeks, those lips on her mouth after they came, those were her favorites. She wanted to keep those.

She wanted to keep him.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand next up: Love!
> 
> My eternal always-thanks to Uglygreenjacket who works on weekends (PLUS her weekdays 9 to 5 grind) and still makes time to beta for me on those weekends AND ALSO WROTE ME A BIRTHDAY FIC TODAY GO CHECK IT OUT! It's called ER Epiphany and it has Kobayashi in it and it's HILARIOUS.
> 
> Reviews are love, and I love all my reviewers in return - you make me want to write!


	10. Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE LOVE AND ALL YOUR BIRTHDAY WISHES! I appreciate every single review and hold them in SO high regard - you give me a happy dopamine rush everytime my inbox pings to notify me of a new review you don't even know, and it's what keeps me writing in my busy time, so thank you, thank you, thank you! I see you all and want to hug you!
> 
> Onto a few softer notes, this chapter! I hope you like this, too!

* * *

The Unintentional Seduction of Chiba Mamoru  
Chapter 10: Love

* * *

The water splashed around her when she moved her arm out of the tub to fling it across her eyes and groan.

Usagi sunk deeper into the water and blew a few bubbles - then spit it out with a grimace. That water was disgusting. Minako's fancy aromatherapy bath salts _smelled_ good, but really didn't taste well.

She sighed.

It felt good on her skin, the hot water. Soothing. Her whole body was over-sensitive and overstimulated, and if she closed her eyes long enough, she could almost imagine the soft waves when she moved were Mamoru's slow, tender hands caressing her hyperaware skin.

Immediately, she ripped her eyes back open.

Now fucking _water_ reminded her of Mamoru. _Just_ the friggin _water…_

And there was a reason she'd taken a bath and not a shower in the first place.

But she knew it was a lost cause. She couldn't keep from thinking about him. Whatever she did, her mind strayed to him. And it wasn't even just the sex. _Sure_ , her mind flashed to that _a lot_ because _of course_ , but… But most often it was his smile.

The soft one, the one that took awhile for him to feel comfortable to unleash...

When their libido had momentarily calmed down and it had seemed that their minds had settled back in and he'd started talking about study-group sessions he'd missed, she'd been mortified and apologetic and promised to give him some more room, even when he reacted kind of weirdly reluctant to agree.

It was her fourth consecutive night away from him, now. And yes, she _was_ getting some shit done when she got home from work these days: laundry, manga, actually showing up for Senshi meetings, YouTube, painting her toenails in a coral tone that Essie had named 'Guilty Pleasure' to cheesy romcoms on Netflix while lounging on her bed with Minako and Luna, distracted online-shopping for sexier underwear, more manga.

She also knew, if she stayed in his proximity, all _he'd_ get done was massage her tongue with his, because she was AWFUL and addicted.

"What do you think of Mamoru?" she'd asked Luna the previous night as she lay on her bed sighing into her yaoi boys love manga. (She never noticed they always had such big _hands_ in these - just like Mamoru.)

"I think I misjudged him," Luna had said after a curiously long, contemplative pause, and then didn't elaborate.

"Me too," Usagi had signed eventually, and then stared forlornly at her phone. Would he be up? Was he studying? Did he miss her, too? Because she missed him terribly.

"Me too…" she'd repeated once more, and collapsed groaning into her comforter.

This morning alone she'd seen a couple on the train discreetly holding hands and then thought of Mamoru's hands as if she was possessed until she stumbled on the escalator way later. Would he be a hand-holder in public if she were his girlfriend? When she overheard her colleague talking about groceries and laundry detergent with her husband on her phone, Usagi sighed and wondered how it might be to live with him, how fast her chaos might drive him insane or if he wouldn't find her so bad in the long run? And then somehow it was almost lunch time and she'd barely gotten anything done.

 _All_ the NPCs she designed these days were really Mamoru in plentiful different facets. Her project team leader was starting to notice a trend, and the developers in her team who actually had to program these boys were starting to roll their eyes at her designs. Gone were the days of Tsukino Usagi The Super Game Designer (Who Was Secretly A Superheroine Herself And Thus Knew A Thing Or Two About Monster Designs And Epic Battles And Thus Was Really Kinda Cheating At This Work Thing But So Far No One Had Noticed.)

Where she'd previously written the _best_ quests and fights and game sequences, now she only wrote of sexy boys with panty-dropping smooth lines coming on to the main characters, because Usagi had _always_ written her life in this job.

Now, she was distracted and unoriginal and _really_ , really tempted to start writing this game into NSFW directions no matter how much Sato-san would be furious with her, and come lunch, she'd trudged down to the conbini to get a bento so lost in thought she'd forgotten her phone in her office.

She snatched it up so fast she nearly dropped her food when it flashed 4 new messages at her when she'd returned.

Mamo-chan, 12:38pm.  
Can I see you tonight?

Mamo-chan, 12:39pm.  
I know we said tomorrow. But… maybe you want to? After my study group? Around 9? I could cook for you. If you'd like?

Mamo-chan, 12:42pm.  
We don't have to do anything if you don't feel like it. We could watch a film if you wanted to?

Mamo-chan, 12:49pm.  
Nevermind. I'm sorry if that was weird. I'll see you tomorrow?

She'd nearly wanted to cry in relief.

Usagi, 12:52pm.  
YES!1! (Sorry didn't have my phone!)

And that's how she found herself sighing in her tub straight after work to pass the time until it was finally nine and very aware of the fact that her mind had been rendered useless and replaced with an endless loop of Mamoru.

She supposed she was a bit fucked. And it was all her own doing.

It was half past seven when she padded out of the bathroom in a big fluffy towel into Minako's room and cursed Minako's full schedule.

But Artemis had obviously come home sometime during tubby-time and lay on Minako's bed in a small puddle of cat.

She sat down on the mattress with a bounce, startling him awake. (She _might_ have accidentally sat down on his floofy little tail to get his attention.)

"Hey Artemis," she rushed out without apology, carding her hands through her damp hair perhaps a bit too self-consciously. "You're a guy, right?"

When she peeked over to him, he was throwing her the most annoyed look, yawned, stretched, and then padded on pristinely white paws over to her and sat next to her in that straight, prissy way he so often held himself.

"Is something wrong, Usagi?" he said in a careful tone, and Usagi sighed again, and wriggled into the mattress, fluffy towel and all.

"If a man like, tells you to forget the guy you're into… that _means_ something, right?" she murmured, then carefully looked at her little advisor of choice (or rather, convenience, let's face it.)

He flicked his little kitty-ears at her and frowned. "That… really depends on the context it was said in."

Usagi sighed again, harder this time, and curled a strand of hair around her finger as she pouted at her hands.

Artemis settled a little closer, butting his head against her toweled thigh, and Usagi stretched out her hand almost automatically to run her fingers through his fur.

"Usagi-chan," he said after a while, settling down right against her legs onto his paws in a way she was sure was supposed to be comforting her. "… I'm going to be blunt, ok?"

She nodded.

"Contrary to popular belief around here, men are also just people. Insecure, vulnerable people, like everyone," he said carefully, and she threw him an immediate frown. "On the whole many men are just systematically more trained and encouraged to act like stone walls. It doesn't mean they actually ARE stone walls…"

Usagi huffed down at him, a bit offended, hand stilling in his fur to point an accusing finger into his little cat-face. "Of course, he's a person!" she belted. "What do you think I—"

"He's having sex with you, Usagi-chan," he said a bit too dryly, and Usagi fell back into her silent frown. "The other day, he ran here about 10 minutes after you called him- and arrived out of breath. It means something to you, and it means something to him."

Yeah, she was surprised at the way her heartbeat decided to start picking up at that thought very quickly.

It was then that the door flew open with a crash and they both jumped.

"Aha!" Minako exclaimed, one finger raised, her dramatic cat-eye sunglasses still on her face, her designer bag thrown haphazardly in the general direction of the small armchair in her corner that wasn't visible under a mountain of clothes anymore.

"Cuddling with my half-naked roommate on my bed! Artemis, you hentai!" She raised her sunglasses onto the top of her head, stemmed her hand into her hip and glared at her cat.

"Why am _I_ the hentai?" Artemis screeched, fur rising, tail lashing. " _She_ came in here and sat on me!"

"You fiend!"

Usagi giggled.

"She came to me for advice!"

"Oh, _yeah_ right," Minako cackled. She had the most evil kind of fun riling that poor cat-boy up. "About what, how to _get stuck in the trash_ again?"

"It was an accident! I don't have opposable thumbs! You try going about life without those!"

And by the time Minako stroked his fur, snickering as she held him in a strong-hold under his offended mutterings while she petted him (he was not being appreciated in this house, he was being manhandled, he did NOT destroy her Visvim dress that must have been Luna how often did he have to say this, no one took him seriously around here, etc. etc.), Usagi had sunken down against Minako's headboard and sighed, and ran her fingers through the macramé fringe of Minako's throw pillows.

"Can you be in lust but not in love?" Usagi asked quietly.

The bickering stilled, and Minako threw Artemis a look before she sat down on her bed, cat in her arms.

"I mean," Minako started with a frown after a beat of too concerned silence, "yeah, of course you can look at someone and go yum."

"Yeah," Usagi nodded, and slung her arms around her naked knees, fluffy pillow shifting about her.

"And you can fuck someone you hate, too, obviously."

Another nod, perhaps too sad, and she fell into a frown. She'd never hated him. She'd _said_ she hated him quite a lot though when she was younger and had thought she'd meant it. Had he ever hated her?

And then Minako's tone turned even more careful.

"But in general, I'd say sex and love aren't as separate at all as so many people seem to assume…"

Usagi's eyes flew up in surprise, heart jumping at her words, but Minako had gotten up and allowed Artemis to slip out quietly, and started to walk about her room and pull out a dresser.

"At least good sex?" Minako said, and threw Usagi a shrug.

Usagi moved to her knees, and Minako pulled out a big, half-full weekender bag from beneath her bed.

"You know, the one where you connect?" Minako elaborated, and moved a very glittery dress out of her bag and onto the clothes mountain, then a bunched up load of fabric and threw it in her laundry basket. "The one where you like, you see each other and you worship each other? The attentive one. The good sex. It's called making love for a reason."

Usagi's fingers twitched, her breath hitched. Mamoru's eyes superimposed themselves into her mind's eye, the way he _watched_ her. Always. Even when his breath was laboured and he stared at her so intensely as he was moving on top of her, inside of her.

Minako pulled a pair of fancy pants out of the clothes-mountain, winced when it almost toppled over, but she caught it. "I blame porn, really," she said offhandedly, and held the pants to her nose to sniff them.

"What?" Usagi croaked, and pulled the knot in her giant towel a little tighter, flushing. She was suddenly realising she was in her roommate's bed in nothing but a towel while flash-remembering sex with Mamoru and that was maybe not so appropriate.

She sat up a little straighter, tried to banish the image from her thoughts, an impossible task, and then realised Minako was talking about porn.

"Wait, what?" she said, now confused, and Minako shrugged.

"Ya know? For that idiot notion that lust and love are totally separate?" Minako said, and dropped the pants on her bed next to Usagi, then went to sniff another garment. "It's porn. It's those porn clips where it's just bam-bam-badda-oompf all cocks and vags and how many cocks can fit into that vag and like, people don't talk or even look at each other?" Minako tossed out nonchalantly as if she was talking about the weather. "All you ever see is a cock poking a pussy. Or other holes. It's stripped of all emotional connection. That's not the good kinda sex."

"Yeah…" Usagi said, frowning.

"That's the bad kinda sex in my opinion. The one without any love at all. No connection whatsoever. No seeing each other and enjoying this beautiful person who is watching you back, and not just enjoying yourself."

Minako folded a colorful jumpsuit Usagi was pretty sure was actually hers, and put it on top of the pants already on the bed.

"And since porn is so often the only thing about sex people get to see and learn, no wonder people can think there's no love in it?"

Usagi's heart was palpitating. She was very, very sure, very suddenly, that she'd had nothing but good sex. All those times he stroked his hands across her skin and gauged her reaction. His soft smile. The way he looked at her when she was coming apart in his arms. The way he kept kissing and kissing even if he could no longer get the rest of his anatomy to work, because that somehow really didn't matter so much anymore - touching each other was so much more important. Seeing what _else_ she could make him do, how _else_ she could make him sound…

Usagi swallowed harshly, pressed the towel to her chest, and Minako inspected a cardigan for lint and cat hair.

"I don't think you can have that good sex if you're not at least very, very fond of that person beneath you. Or on top of you. Or behind you. Or whatever you want."

Usagi licked her lips.

And then Minako folded the cardigan against her chest, and threw Usagi a soft look.

"Of course," she started, more attentive now, "you of all people are someone who is very, very fond of many, many people very, very fast…"

Minako's eyes really could be very tender and sympathetic sometimes…

"You love the whole world, Usagi-chan. You would always connect… even in general." she shrugged.

There was suddenly a big, big lump in Usagi's throat and it tried to choke her.

Minako frowned. "Except maybe you're not asking about yourself, but whether _he's_ having lust-sex or love-sex?"

It pressed, that lump. It pressed badly.

With a slower movement, Minako placed the cardigan on top of the pile on the bed, and then folded it all over and placed it in the emptied weekender bag.

Usagi blinked at the motion, and suddenly went rigid. "Wait," she shot out. "Are you packing?!"

Minako looked at her bewildered, moved a bunch of underwear into her bag. "Of course I am?"

Usagi felt a bit like whining - her heart felt stretched and tight. "Are you leaving again?"

Minako tilted her head at her, her eyes flooding with sympathy. "Fukuoka, remember?"

Usagi felt her own face falling, and all her limbs with it. "… oh…"

Minako sighed, got up from her perch on the floor, and walked to her wardrobe. She slipped a maxi summer dress from one of her pretty hangers and folded it in half over her arm. Then she reached for a glittery blazer and a colorful pair of boots next.

The dress and blazer got wrapped in wrinkly tissue, the boots into a mesh laundry bag, and all of it into the weekender, and all the while Minako kept throwing those looks at Usagi in that patient way she only had when it was about Usagi's heart.

Minako was sorting little tubs of make-up and eye-shadow palettes into her oft-travelled cosmetic bag and pulling others out of it to replace when Usagi found her voice next.

"Mina-P," Usagi said quietly, and she turned to look at Usagi. "I… I think he might like me… Maybe."

Minako smiled. "I agree."

And what her heart was doing _then_ was abusing her ribs, really.

"Do you like him?" Minako asked.

"...I think I do," Usagi said, fiddling with the towel.

Minako threw her a look, turned to her fully, pointed an eyeliner at her and raised her eyebrow. "You _think_?"

"I know," Usagi sighed, and then groaned loudly and theatrically collapsed onto Minako's bed, then kicked her feet against the orange comforter for good measure. "I knooow!"

"Hey, that's good!" Minako's voice insisted outside of bed-realm.

"Ughhh," Usagi whined into the soft cotton.

"It's not good?"

"I told him I like someone else!" Usagi wailed into the fabric, muffled voice and all, punching her fists into Minako's bed and kicking it.

"You do like someone else!"

"I KNOW!"

Usagi grunted into Minako's bed again, and then whipped up straight and suddenly, startling Minako who sat right in front of her bed patiently waiting with her hair straightener in her lap.

"I'm a horrible person, Mina-P!" she wailed, throwing up her hands. "I deserve neither of them!"

"Usagi, no!" Minako started, but Usagi wailed right over her.

"They're… they're just… Mina-P, the more I see of Mamo-chan... they're so ALIKE, I… I'm horrible! I'm absolutely horrible!"

"What?!" Minako growled, all fierce and accusing finger again.

"I'm a two-timer! I don't deserve either of them!"

Minako definitely growled then, hopped up, and shook Usagi's shoulder. "Usagi! Calm down!"

That got her to shut up at least, and pout.

Minako was glaring. "You're _not_ horrible! Mamoru knows what's going on! He knew what he agreed to! You were honest from the start!" she scolded.

Usagi sighed.

"And you're NOT two-timing! We already covered this! To be unfaithful you have to be _in a relationship with someone_! And as for Mamoru, this is a casual thing and he agreed to it!" Minako went on. "You did this right!"

" _And_ ," Minako's finger was right in her face. "This was one of the plans! Plan B! Getting over Tux!"

Usagi's face dissolved back into hysteria. "But I'm NOT!" she lamented loudly, pitifully, slumping backwards back onto Minako's bed and throwing up her arms over her head. "I still like Tuxedo Mask! He's… he's so wonderful! But… but _Mamo-chan_ he's... he's…"

She wanted to cry. And hit herself in the head a lot. She was _despicable_ , she—

Minako sighed dramatically, patted Usagi's knee, and the mattress bounced when Minako plopped onto it beside her, cross-legged and pitying her.

"I think you should keep being honest," Minako said in her no-nonsense voice. The stern one. The you're-being-ridiculous-listen-to-Mina-because-Mina-knows-best voice. "To Mamoru. I think you'll feel better. You want him to make informed decisions."

Usagi slapped both her arms across her face and whined.

"I'm not saying you have to right away!" Minako said beside her, and was probably shifting, because the bed moved. "As I said, lover boy knows what he agreed to. You're not deceiving him! But… think about it. And when you got your heart translated, I think you should tell him what you learned?"

Usagi inhaled deeply through her nose, moved her hands back over her head, and turned her chin to pout at Minako.

"You don't have to rush anything," she said with a small shrug and patient smile, looking right at her pitiful Usagi-self. "You've been into Tux for four years. That's not gone overnight! And you of all people shouldn't expect it to!" she said, and poked the towel at Usagi's belly. "Especially not for someone who loves everyone so very, very much with that giant-ass heart of yours? I'm pretty sure you will love Tuxedo Mask forever."

Usagi whined.

"Like you love me forever!"

But that made her smile.

"You know, because I'm so lovable!" Minako winked dramatically, all lovable Minako-play.

Usagi snorted, pushed her fist to shove at Minako's knee, who clutched her heart in playful appallment, and Usagi smiled harder, and sat up, then sighed in a much needed, deep, deep, deep inhale-exhale kinda thing.

"So, watch how it goes?" Minako said after a while, and patted Usagi's knee. "Listen to your heart. I know you can do that!"

One more deep sigh, and then a nod.

Minako got back up from the bed, turned to her dresser, and held up two bras. "So, important stuff. Ravijour or Princesse Tam Tam?"

"Princesse Tam Tam," Usagi nodded, and a pretty lace bralette flew into the weekender with a bunch of normal cotton ones, and still Usagi made no motion to ever leave, hoping that maybe all of Minako's love-goddess-wisdom would seep into her veins via osmo-something. The thing where stuff just travels and is then in you. It could happen. She wasn't even wearing a lot. It could just crawl right into her skin, very little obstruction.

When Minako was unplugging her charger and putting it into her handbag, Usagi was clutching the macramé pillow against her chest and abusing it a little. Where were those cats when one was emotional and needed cuddles?

"I think Mamo-chan wants to know who it is," Usagi mumbled.

Minako flinched, looking up from her handbag sorting. "I mean you COULD tell him."

Usagi pressed her lips together and whined into the pillow. "He'd think I'm insane," she murmured pitifully. "I can't tell him I'm Sailor Moon, and so how could that _ever_ be seen as not like a silly, insane fangirl crush? He ALREADY thinks I'm a silly fangirl…"

She pouted hard. "Like. _Imagine_. Hey, two truths and a lie; the guy I'm into is Tuxedo Mask, he was my first kiss and all, and I'm _not_ a nutcase."

Minako crouched in front of her bag and tilted her head, all pity and cringe. "Well... yeah… that _is_ a tough one..."

Usagi sighed, threw the pillow back onto the bed, clutched her towel, and got up. "I'll go get ready now."

"Oh?" Minako looked confused, and Usagi immediately blushed. Right, as far as Mina-P knew, tonight was Netflix and Coco Curry time.

"Um," Usagi shrunk into her towel and felt suddenly quite hot. "Mamo-chan is cooking for me tonight…"

Minako's smile transformed into the dirtiest smirk. "Aha!" she said once more, and Usagi squeaked and turned to flee.

She was already out the door when Minako called her back.

"Usagi?" Her voice was back to being soft, and Usagi poked her flushed face back into the room.

Minako was fiddling with a bunch of cables, and looked up at her pointedly. "I'd like to point out the Tux pillow never made it back into your bed…"

Uh…

"It's still in your drawer, and you didn't even notice. Meanwhile the doll sits _exactly_ where Mamoru put it…"

Usagi frowned, brow furrowed, and swallowed when she realised that Minako was very, very right.

* * *

Her next clue came about 20 minutes later. She had just finished putting up her hair when both hers and Minako's communicator next door started screeching simultaneously, Ami-chan's voice updating them of Zoisite's latest youma.

Only a month ago or so, her heart would have started jumping in giddy somersaults at the fact, because, well, _Tuxedo Mask_.

Now her eyes flew in horror to her chicken clock - twenty to nine! And her heart did somersault - but because it was contemplating if Tokyo _really_ needed Sailor Moon tonight, and cringed immediately. Bad Usagi. Very, very bad Usagi.

But what would she do if it went on _longer_?

Needless to say, Usagi fought with a vigor usually reserved for like, the apocalypse. Not a random youma. Minako was cackling all the while, Ami-chan was _bewildered_ , and Tuxedo Mask was weirdly on board with her.

And well, yes, her heart did jump into her feet when she saw him as it always did, but she also realised that she'd managed to just shake it off and bulldoze ahead as if the world was ending - they'd been a spectacular team, in fact, the two of them, totally over-doing it as if they were literally fighting against time, Mercury standing behind them with her supercomputer left to do with absolutely _nothing_ and shaking her head in confusion.

"Sailor Moon, now!" he screamed, and held the youma _into her path by the armpits_.

She pink-blasted it into oblivion and Tuxedo Mask smirked at her, tapped his top head, and was off.

It was when she'd run off herself, leaving Minako to snicker at Ami and do the explaining, and she was scaling rooftops in dark Motoazabu to get to Mamoru's faster, that she stopped and realised what had just happened.

She and Tuxedo Mask had just kicked _ass_ and she hadn't stopped to swoon. In fact, she hadn't even tried to flirt with him. All she'd thought about at the time was her worry about standing Mamoru up should this go too long.

She hopped down from terracotta shingles into a gap between houses, de-transformed, and clutched at her heart.

She hadn't seen Tuxedo Mask in a longer while than Mamoru. She'd seen Mamoru three nights ago - but Tuxedo Mask two weeks ago and she could only pinpoint when because she knew when she'd had to stand Mamoru up for it. And yet she hadn't… Yet, she'd been so hell-set on getting this done she'd barely _looked_ at that sweet smile and the flamboyant way he fought and… and...

It all kind of choked her up, shook her, and she was still shaken when she finally stood in front of Mamoru's apartment.

She'd sat through All The Boys I've Loved Before with Minako just two nights ago and all she'd babbled about during the film was Mamoru…

Mamoru looked a bit frazzled, when he ripped the door open for her. His hair was windswept and messy.

"Hi," he breathed down to her, a bit harried, a bit tense, standing too close as always but really not close enough, and maybe that was _her_ standing too close, having stepped inside. There was worry in his eyes. "I'm sorry, something came up last minute so I'm only just now—"

She reached up and ran her hands into his hair, smoothing it back down and it caused him to pause and sigh and _watch_ her and—

He sighed in that gutted, beautiful way and leaned down against her lips, brushing his mouth against hers in that way that felt as if he was trying to taste her - slow and gentle and untense lips and breathing her in.

When he detached his lips from hers he exhaled slowly against her face, then smiled. Kissed her nose, kissed her forehead, and she crinkled her nose as she smiled back up in return.

"I'm only just starting to cook now," he tried again, voice so much calmer now. "I hope you aren't too hungry, it'll still be a while."

"I'm always hungry," she pouted, and curled her fingers into the button border of his shirt, then pressed her nose into it like a creep and inhaled.

He smelled like roses.

She frowned, taken aback.

But he was chuckling, his laugh that lovely rumble and he leaned back down and kissed the crown of her head.

"I do promise to feed you, don't worry."

It did give her the opportunity to sit on top of his counter and do nothing as he cooked.

He was an unfairly attractive cook. All that hair falling into his eyes as he looked down, that ridiculously pretty butt in those tight black jeans as he moved around, the graceful arch of his wrist-bones as he cut the vegetables and mushrooms and meats and threw them together with the store-bought chicken meatballs into a thick cast iron pot.

And apparently this man made friggin _dashi from scratch_.

Nabe had never smelled so good.

And before her brain managed to keep her from doing something she might regret really, really hard, her mouth opened.

"Mamo-chan…" she started, heart beating in her throat.

"Hm?" he hummed distractedly over the rush of water, washing the udon through a sieve in his sink.

"Can I ask you something?"

He turned the faucet off immediately, moved to face her, watching her. That intense way - she had his full attention.

She swallowed thickly, the boiling broth behind him the only sound in the room. "Do you think…" she started nervously, and then broke off. What came out wasn't exactly what her heart screamed, but it was a hint at it. A chickened-out compromise.

"Do you think you like... get very, very fond of like, many, many people… quite fast?" she asked and felt her cheeks heat.

His head jerked back a little, the resulting smile a bit lopsided and a lot bewildered.

Her cheeks burned. She tried again. In good words. Why didn't she have good words? Words that weren't, hey, do you love me? Hey, is this special for you, too? Am I one of many? Do you do this often? Is this… something? Or not?

She tried her best. "Do you… do you connect with a lot of people?" she squeaked.

He tilted his head at her even more - his expression looked like it couldn't decide whether it was amused or confused. "I don't, no," he said slowly, clearly gauging her reaction. "Not at all…"

That… hit.

It hit in a rollercoaster way, her shoulders first tensing in hope (maybe she _was_ special?), only for him to end in such a ...finite way.

_Not at all._

Meaning not with her, either…?

So… he didn't... feel close with her? When they were…

She felt her face fall, felt her stomach pinch, and the blood drain from her face. "Oh…" she murmured. "Not... not at _all_?"

His brow was knitted in confusion, watching her carefully. "Almost never," he said very cautiously, his eyes on guard.

_Almost._

Her heart jumped.

"Oh…" she said. And they formed on her lips, the words. _How about me? Do you feel fond of me?_ But before she found the courage to spit them at him, he'd stepped closer, alert, attentive, and spoke first.

"Is everything ok?" he asked, and brushed a finger against her cheek.

She shivered at the contact, and her hand flew up to clutch his, nabe boiling noisily.

She swallowed, pressed his hand against her face, and his eyes jumped between hers.

"Would you…" she started carefully, helplessly gazing up, and she suddenly realised he was standing right between her spread legs. She swallowed, tried again. "Would you say love is sexual?"

His eyes _jumped_ , and he swallowed, too.

"Love is very much sexual," he said after a beat, slow and intense.

Something was vibrating in the space between them. Something tangible. Something fierce. Something scared.

"Why are you asking?" he whispered at her lips.

Usagi exhaled against his, her lips trembling.

When she didn't get the guts to answer, he brushed his hand slowly up her leg and down again. Beneath her skirt and back to her knee. The most innocent touch, as if to feel the texture of her skin, even when it left goosebumps in its wake even though it was far, far from cold in kitchen.

"Have you ever heard of the dimensions of sex?" he asked her skin absentmindedly, carefully.

"No," she whispered.

"A fancy model from a bunch of psychologists. It describes the modes in which sex exists and moves and relates and… yeah," he broke off, his index finger trailed back under her skirt, and back out. "One of the three base dimensions is relational. That sex is something that connects. Something to comfort each other with, something to show and experience acceptance and… and love."

Usagi's heart was beating so loud he must have heard, but he didn't look up, kept running his hand up and down her skin, now with just the tips of his fingers.

"Minako says something similar…" she croaked.

A tiny smile ghosted across his lips before it was gone again, his eyes glued to the movement of his hand.

"What are the other two?"

He finally looked up - his eyes were slow to do so, almost with trepidation. But when they settled on hers, they were as intense and fierce as always.

"Hm?" he hummed.

"The other dimensions," she asked, voice weirdly hoarse.

But he shrugged easily. "Lust and reproduction."

Well, that seemed anti-climactic.

"Oh," she said, a bit disappointed. But made sense, really…

But it painted a smile back on his lips. The crooked one. The half-smile. The one that made her throb because it was too sexy.

Something swam in his eyes, and in his sigh, too. But it stayed there, and after a moment, and a heavier sigh, he turned back to the sink, lifted the sieve with the udon out of it, and dropped them in the pot.

She suddenly felt cold without him so near.

She made it three more rounds of breathing until she hopped off the counter and glued herself to his side, pretending to want to look in the pot, and then staying because it smelled divine and she moaned.

He cracked another of those half-smiles at her, looked down at her over his shoulder, and then added thinly cut meats with his chopsticks from a platter.

They sizzled and changed color in the broth almost immediately, and he turned off the heat, filled a bunch of sprouts on top, and put a lid on it.

"Mina's away for the week," Usagi mumbled out when he stretched to get two dark and pretty ceramic bowls from a cupboard above her head.

He turned to her with those expressive, watchful eyes, bowls raised. "Oh?"

She shrugged, tried to act nonchalant, as if it really didn't matter. As if she was a functioning adult who didn't get so lonely she would flee once her roommate is gone for a bit.

"She's got two shoots in Fukuoka again and it doesn't make sense to go back and forth with the cost of the Shinkansen down there so she's staying the week."

He looked at her for a beat, unblinking. Knowing. "Makes sense…" he said carefully.

She shrugged away from his side, bumped her bum against his counter and watched the floor. "I'm probably gonna go stay with my pare—"

He interrupted her. His voice the same intensity of his eyes. "Do you want to stay with me, instead?"

Her eyes whipped up, and his got nervous.

He abruptly turned back to the pot, lifted the lid, and moved a pretty wooden ladle from the broth into one of the bowls, and then the other, and then did it again. "You don't have to, of course," he said towards the hotpot. "You can go to your parent's. But if you—"

"Would you want me here?" she asked breathlessly, wide-eyed.

He put the bowls down carefully.

And then his eyes were back on hers. That steady, unwavering eye contact that swam in that strange bubble of devotion and warmth for her and that giant dose of fear that all pistoned off her heart.

"I'd want nothing more," he said.

That gutted look that haunted her dreams.

It choked her.

She was in love with him. She really, really was.

She stumbled forward. Ripped at his shirt and yanked him down and his hands caught at her waist and his lips on hers and he hummed into her mouth when she attacked him. Tightened his grip on her when he started to give it all back, and yet touched her like he always did. As if she was something precious.

He came down with her when she fell, moaned into her mouth and then against her collarbones, touched her like he worshipped her right there on his kitchen floor, until he eventually carried her to bed.

She was lost. Utterly, totally lost.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realised this week that I've never written an Artemis and Usagi interaction before, and THEN Uglygreenjacket checked the original anime for me and found out for us that CANON barely had Artemis and Usagi interactions either and it kind of surprised me, and also made me think how many OTHER rare interactions there are. (Rei and Taiki, Michiru and Makoto, Ami and Yaten, Diana and Haruka & Michiru, etc etc etc the list goes on. Surprising for a show with 200 episodes in it!)
> 
> ANYWAY I HOPE YOU LIKED THIS! Please feed me reviews and let me know if or what you enjoyed so I can love you forever lol (and also try and do that again lol)!
> 
> My always thanks to Uglygreenjacket - she even betas for me regardless of her time and mood or if I'm terribly irritating, and I love you for it, woman!
> 
> Next up: Let's blow this up, shall we?


	11. Intimacy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here you go, you've been warned, this is gonna be the wreckage one. So, have fun with two idiots unable to listen to their own advice and running straight into familiar traps. I'm sorry, lol?
> 
> Anyway, we've almost reached the end! Thank you SO so much - everyone who has been supporting me with this fic, be it through favs and kudos and wonderful, wonderful reviews and comments! You guys are the ones who keep this story going for me! THANK YOU SO MUCH! And thank you, as always, to my superstar beta Uglygreenjacket - we've just counted for how many words she's had my writing-back, and it's been A LOT, and I love you, girl!
> 
> So, prepare yourself lol, you've been warned!

* * *

The Unintentional Seduction of Chiba Mamoru  
Chapter 11: Intimacy

* * *

Usagi felt as if she were in a bubble - the pretty kind, the real kind, the fragile kind - the kind that blew up and shone shimmering, translucent and ethereal like something from a dream until it grew too big and popped all on its own, inevitable, nothing at all required for its unavoidable destruction but time.

She was afraid she'd lose this all if she so much as breathed at it wrong, and it prickled on her skin in nervousness.

Mamoru was fucking _amazing_.

He'd waited for her, leaning against his car outside of her office building the next day, nervous and sweet, offering to help her get a bag to his if she wanted, got nervous and flustered when she was silent and shocked and apologized with hands shooting into his pockets that if he'd assumed, if she'd changed her mind, that was totally ok—

She'd ripped him down to her by the shirt and kissed him until a passerby had tutted.

And really, his hands fluttering down to her waist and so slowly grabbing on whenever she did that was fast becoming her favorite thing in the world.

Later, he'd been the one to do the tutting, when she had her feet on the seat of his stupidly posh car, and when she'd just thrown her toiletries in with her underwear into her pink backpack as he sat on the very edge of her bed with his hands folded in his lap and watched her disaster-pack, and again when she'd dragged him into Katsuya for dinner, and how was his prissy personality something she got so worked up about in the past when he was just such a cute fucking clam of a _nerd_?

Or maybe she was just too far gone on this man because it made her heart beat too fast when he did such weirdly neat things but how could she _not_?

He made his bed. Every morning. He had a clip around his plastic toothpaste tube to push out the paste easier. He drank way too much coffee and yet ground his own beans fresh every time and cleaned his mug after every single use. He filed his nails in the most peculiarly thorough and neat way she'd ever seen. He'd emptied out a drawer for her and pressed his lips together in irritation and something else when she didn't use it and instead just lived out of her bag like a normal lazy person.

He held her hand as they crossed streets running, and then hung on to it when they walked down to the supermarket together on Thursday.

He'd filled that pretty, big, blue ceramic bowl as he slowly peeled minkan and pomelo for her while they watched Netflix (first, a K-drama he'd endured with a roll of his eyes, then a documentary about the mind that she surprisingly didn't hate at all.)

Or the way he watched her as she brushed her hair out before bed even when he tried to pretend so hard that he didn't.

Or when she'd woken up in the middle of the night, twice now in the four days she'd got to spend at his place and he'd made her feel as if she could live here forever, and there he was, next to her, breathing deeply, plump mouth slightly open and his face so pretty on that pillow, eyes moving underneath closed eyelids, rustling those unfairly beautiful eyelashes against his cheeks as he dreamed.

And how those eyes opened so calmly when she couldn't help herself and brushed her fingers along that soft skin underneath his eyes, how they just fluttered open and watched her right back until they fluttered back closed only when she leaned down to kiss those plump, pretty lips with the deepest of sighs, and how he opened his mouth immediately to kiss her back so much deeper than she'd intended.

And how he'd roll her over, then, watching her. And how he'd lift his shirt away from her body and let his kisses wander, never saying a single word. And how he'd roll his hips into her, way later, so slowly and sensually, so beautiful and deep and savouring as if it wasn't the middle of the night but a Sunday morning and they had all day, and how it was so much more intense in that absolute silence with only the moon casting shadows on their skin, and he watched her with an intensity that choked her until he made her come with his thumb against her clit and his slow, deep cock rocking against her as deep as their sleepy breathing had been just before.

It was all the most precious thing she'd ever had, and it made her so absolutely terrified; that bubble sure to pop.

The day it did pop had started with his fingers stroking through her hair and her cheek against his chest and his lips against the crown of her head as she woke up on top of him with her chest hurting hard because she never wanted to let go.

And she didn't. They'd spent that whole glorious Saturday morning in his bed in his beautifully air-conditioned apartment until the sun stood so high it was blinding her through his high windows, and occasionally he'd get up to bring her food and crawl back underneath the covers with her.

All day she was in her favorite, most comfortable, most boring, most unsexy fuchsia pink cotton panties and one of his shirts again, after he'd reacted so beautifully flustered every time before when she'd bent to pick his shirt back off the floor and stretched to slip it on.

He'd done this before - breakfast and lunches and dinners in bed, but there was something special about it now when she stayed here, when she wasn't naked and sweating and coming off a high.

And the food was becoming fancier and fancier, and if she allowed her heart to whisper, she felt like he was doing this on purpose.

When he hopped out of bed next - just those low-rising, thin cotton pajama bottoms and his reading glasses on him and nothing else and _seriously_ goddamn where did this man get those abs she _never_ saw him work out - and opened his fridge, and lit a friggin _kitchen blow torch_ in his kitchenette across the room, her eyes nearly bugged out of her head.

He came carrying two small glass bowls filled with softly yellow, rich custard cream and a cracked brown layer of caramellized sugar crust and her heart was fucking out of its mind because what man made homemade fucking crème brûlée?!

"When the hell did you make this?!" she whisper-shouted her shock when the mattress dipped under his weight and he held one beneath her nose, spoon stuck into the cracked crust.

"Yesterday…" he said with a soft smile and a sheepish, boyish shrug. "I have a break between classes on Fridays."

It must have all shown in her eyes. No way they weren't heart-shaped. No way they didn't yell out the words 'I love you. I love you SO HARD', or maybe 'marry me fucking now.' No way they didn't. Her heart was thumping so loud it was almost painful, and so she just fucking stared at him.

(And besides, she was pretty sure this was too much. If she said these things, she'd break the bubble. What would she do if he'd show her the door, if this wasn't what he wanted? If these things were reserved for 'casual', not for 'real'?)

He didn't speak Usagi-heart-eyes, and when she stared longer but didn't take the bowl, he cast his eyes down to it.

"…Have you ever had this?" he asked in a small, almost nervous voice.

She kept on staring, dumb-founded. How had she missed this? She'd known him for years. How had she missed the perfect fucking man hiding beneath that smirk all these fucking years? She stared.

"Have I had fancy-ass french dessert when my friend is a legend of a pâtissière?" her overwhelmed mouth chose to ask instead.

He flinched. "Touché—" he mumbled, and with another bounce of the mattress, he got back off it under her widening eyes. "Well, this is gonna fall flat in comparison to Makoto's, then," he said, retreating.

She hopped onto her knees, mattress creaking loudly. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" she shrieked.

It stopped him.

"Uh…"

"Mamo-chan were you going to tease me with homemade crème brûlée and then TAKE IT AWAY?"

"Uh…"

With another dip of the mattress, he settled back down, desserts raised.

"Better," she admonished, and he finally cracked a smile. The obnoxious one. The smirk. How come she loved it now?

She opened her mouth wide, said an exaggerated 'Ahhh,' and he chuckled, rumbling and deep and smiling with his eyes.

She really, really loved his smile.

She should have said something, then.

Or even later, when she lay with her back to his chest in his tub, his fingers stroking slowly down her arms, her breasts, her belly and down to the junction of her legs in that slow way that was to explore, not to arouse, even when it did that, too.

"Can I ask you something?" he asked, lips at the crook of her neck, breath puffing cool against her damp skin, droplets of water dripping from his wet hair down her collarbone to pool between her breasts.

She shifted back against him, turned her face up, her wet skin slick against his as she moved and looked up at him sideways with questioning eyes.

He sighed, moved down, rubbed his cheek against hers.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked eventually, his fingers drawing circles around her belly button in the clear water, his voice too small.

"This…?" she repeated, panic in her heart suddenly trying to choke her.

"Us," he clarified in a whisper, and her eyes got impossibly wide.

She should have said something then. She should have opened her mouth around the panic and confessed. That yes, she still liked Tuxedo Mask, but Mamoru was winning her heart away so fast and so much harder that it left her dizzy. She loved him, and he deserved to know, even when she was terrified how he'd react, and whether or not they even made any sense together - he might like her, but he didn't _like_ her, she knew that.

And why would he? He was so sweet, and she was… well, she was just Usagi. The unlady-like girl who needed six alarms to wake up and who didn't quite know how to stay on her own when her roommate was gone, and who couldn't tell the guy she was into that she liked him and never had.

If she could admit it, she could promise him that she would try. That Odango Atama would one day be good enough to be his girlfriend for real, and she'd try, and maybe he could wait for that? That she might even get over 'the other guy' completely. She hoped so. Even if she kinda didn't deserve Mamoru anyway because she was so awful.

She should have said that.

"I mean, I know what you said, but…" he said, swallowing, when she froze under his touch.

"Why would you want a man you think you need experience for...?"

His voice was strained, careful. His hand had stilled, lay on her tummy flat and possessive.

She shifted in his arms, surprised. This wasn't quite what she'd expected him to ask at all…

"It wasn't only that…"

"I know. But… still…" he whispered against the shell of her ear, hand on her skin pressing against her.

"It…" she croaked.

_It changed._

"There's nothing bad about gaining some experience..." she said instead.

"I'm not saying there is," he replied immediately, then pressed his shoulder against her, as if saying, 'go on'.

His arms around her laced a little tighter. "What went through your head?" he pressed again.

She exhaled, watched his hand at her tummy, his other hand around her collarbone. "I mean, isn't it valid to like, try and be desirable? A bit... better?"

He inhaled a bit sharper when she said that, exhaled even harder than that, and his hand flexed against her tummy, stroked up the bend to the inside of her thigh and squeezed.

It took a beat of silence until he answered. "Why do you think you aren't perfect already?" he asked in a quiet voice.

And it shocked through her.

Why would he _say_ that?

"... I'm really, really not?" she croaked out, surprised. So, so, surprised. Because... "You of all people know that?"

His hand twitched at her thigh, and she could _feel_ the frown at her cheek.

"You're the one who used to tell m—" she tried to reason.

"Usako!" he hissed, and it broke her off. It sounded almost… almost scared. "You're—"

She frowned, broke him off. "I know I'm not perfect, Mamo-chan." His hand twitched again, stroked back to her belly. "I'm a mess. Why shouldn't I try to make myself better so… so someone might like me more…?"

_Like... you? Perhaps? If you gave me the chance?_

She shifted around against him, lifted her chin to find his eyes, and blinked when she found him _glaring_ down at her.

He licked his lips. It looked like he was ready to snarl.

"Well then.. say you weren't," he bit out, his voice biting, and she inhaled in surprise, mute "Perfect," he went on. "Why would you HAVE to be perfect for him?"

She tried to shift, but both his hands were around her middle now, and he pressed tight, not letting her go, so all it did was shift her wet hair around her shoulders, some of it slick against him.

"Are you not allowed to just be a person who's with another person? Flaws and all? Is there some... rule that doesn't allow you to pursue another imperfect human being until you've glossed out all your self-perceived flaws?"

She shifted, and his hands around her parted only so, so reluctantly. Splashing as they dropped back into the water and she hovered awkwardly on top of him.

"But.. you know how it goes," she said with a slow frown. "'You can't love anyone, if you don't love yourself?'"

He snorted. "Bullshit."

She should have said something. Later, she really, really should have said something.

* * *

He never should have said anything. He should have let it rest. It wouldn't have all ended so disastrously if he'd only kept his mouth shut.

And really, he had no idea why he'd even asked. Why he brought the topic to that idiot when all he wanted and all he was trying to accomplish was to do _everything_ so that she might forget he even existed. But Mamoru had always been somewhat of a masochist.

Yes, he probably shouldn't have started this. He was treading on thin ice as it was and he knew it. Besides, everytime he talked about that fool - the one man who had everything he wanted and he didn't even _want_ it - it drove tiny knives into his heart, but… but she was wrong, and he needed her to see it.

She was so, so _wrong_.

He wanted to pull her back against him so badly.

_You can't love anyone, if you don't love yourself._

"Bullshit," he'd spat, and he watched Usagi scoot back and _away_ from him in surprise, just that tiny fraction, water splashing up the rim of his tub, and her brow furrowed that miniscule amount into a deeper frown.

He should know. He really, really did not love himself. Particularly now. But damn, he was sure of his capability to love until it ate him up, and he knew he was right in that.

"First," he growled, and he tried to reign the glare back in, he _tried_ , "are you saying someone isn't lovable unless they're perfect? YOU? Are YOU saying that?" he spat, and she blinked, settling on his thighs uncomfortably, but no way was he saying anything. He just went on. "You who runs around befriending anyone no matter their flaws? Isn't it exactly the flaws that show you that you love someone? When even THAT's endearing to you?"

She shifted, her lips a little 'o', her hands settling against his abs, and he exhaled deeply.

"I…" she started, broke off, and stroked her thumb against his skin. His hand shot out to wrap around her wrist and hold it there, water moving too fast - it splashed over the rim.

"...You're right," she said, voice odd and surprised and perfect, and he exhaled again. "Yes, you're totally right."

He nodded, calmer now. Moved his fingers up her arm and pulled. She fell against him, more water out the side of his tub, but she was back on him, and he exhaled again. "Second," he said into the crook of her neck, "that's such a mean thing to think and tell other people, don't you think?"

Her head moved against his chest, she shifted her weight onto his legs completely, and he pressed her tighter against him - their pose was absolutely awkward, but he didn't let go. This was important. He'd be so screwed if he wasn't right on this.

"If you could only _be_ loved by someone if you're perfect? It would just add to this narrative that we constantly have to work on ourselves or we're not worthy," he said, felt her hands stroking down his skin. "Worthy to love and live and breathe and look each other in the eye only if we put in the work. All, 'if YOU can't even love yourself, WHO would ever be able to'?"

(What hope would he ever have if this were to be true?)

She sat up on his knee, and he let her go, but this time, she just shifted to look at him, and he sighed, shaking his head sharply, and spoke directly to those blue, blue, precious eyes.

"I think sometimes the best way to learn to love ourselves is to see ourselves through the generously tinted eyes of someone who loves us, don't you think?"

He exhaled again. Her fingers stroked up his neck and against his cheek, and when she shifted again, her legs were clamped around his, and his heart felt more naked than his naked body against hers.

And yet, her voice was smaller than his had felt for the last bit, and it shook when she eventually spoke, her fingers playing with the too long strands of hair at his temple.

"...And do you think there is?"

It was his turn to blink in confusion and with too much hope in his chest.

"Someone who loves you...? Do you think there is?" she asked again, her eyes at his hair. Her fingers trembled, and it shot into his chest, hoping, hoping, hoping.

And yet he shrugged, as if this weren't, perhaps, a turning point in his life, even when he felt his careful mask falling. He was never more terrified of the vulnerability that threatened to show on his face, that he could hear in his own voice when he answered, and he hoped so much that she wouldn't notice. He had a cocky, confident, all-knowing façade to uphold after all.

"You tell me," he said after too long a break. It came out as too much of a whisper.

But her eyes were too wide as they whipped to his and then froze, full of fear. She didn't breathe for a second.

He shifted. The sound of moving water broke the silence but she was still staring, and her hand had curled around his elbow a bit too hard.

But he couldn't take the silence, he couldn't wait it out.

Pressing against her, he pushed her off of him and rose.

"Wait, I— Mamo-chan!" Her hands reached up, tried to push him back down, but he shook her off, and stepped out of the tub, water dripping off his naked form and pooling on the tiles of his floor.

"I—" she started again, voice pressed and hurried. "Mamo-chan—"

He ripped a towel from the shelf in the wall, tied it around his waist, took out another, and walked back to the tub.

His tiles were wet and cold.

She sat unmoved, on her knees, wet hair framing her so beautifully, and he sighed as he stroked a strand of wet, perfect hair out of her shocked face and behind her ear. It didn't stay.

"Besides, Usako," he said, flipping out the other towel and holding it open for her. "I barely know anyone who's more confident and full of self love than you."

She was still staring at him, but with that her mouth closed. Something was working in her eyes.

He waited a while, towel spread, before she rose from the tub and he hugged it around her.

"Are you calling me conceited?" she asked against his chest when his arms were all around her, his nose in the crown of her head.

He bit the inside of his cheek to keep the smirk in, wrapped the enormous towel around her and tied it at her side. "No, I'm not."

She untied it again immediately and re-tied it in front of her chest. Her shoulders fell, eyes at her hands on the knot. "Well about half of that is an act," she murmured.

"That sounds about healthy," he remarked with a shrug.

She lifted her chin, gave him a look, and he shrugged again and pressed the button for the ventilation to get rid of the steam in the room. It came alive with a soft whir.

"No one's ever 100% sure of himself. Only tyrants and narcissists are," he said and pushed open the sliding door that separated the tiled shower and bathing unit from the rest of his bathroom. "The rest of us have healthy, crushingly intense self doubts that ground us here and there."

He heard her smaller feet pad out after him. "You have those, too?" she asked in a voice that was still way to small, so unlike Usagi, and he turned around to look at her with a frown.

Her shoulders were hunched too much, her hands still around that knot, and he frowned even harder.

"Every single fucking day," he said, and her eyes flicked up to his in surprise. "Every single fucking _minute_. Way too much to be healthy."

Her eyes only grew wider.

He shrugged. Like he always did when he was brushing off something important, he supposed. "Guess I'm not the tyrant you think of me as?" he tried to joke.

"I don't think of you like that," she whispered wide-eyed, immediately.

He barely managed that half-smile, because the look in her eyes made his heart pound too much, and so he did the only logical thing: he turned away, opened the door to his bathroom and walked towards his dresser.

By the time she'd followed him out, he was in fresh underwear, his towel on his bed. He blinked when she lifted it back up, and rubbed it into her hair.

"You could have taken another fresh one," he admonished automatically.

Her perfect shoulders lifted and fell, back turned to him, and she bent and twisted it into her hair, wrapping it into a towel turban in two talented flicks, and then she sat on his bed, legs lifting and curling beneath her.

She was so fucking beautiful.

"What's the other half then?" his lips asked without his mind curating it.

She tilted her head at him, visibly confused.

He licked his lips, moved forward and traced the edge of the towel at her hairline with his finger. "You said only half is an act… What are the things you do like about yourself, then?"

"Oh." She frowned.

She took a moment to think and he didn't like it. She shouldn't have to think about it. He cupped her cheeks in his hands and knelt above her on the bed.

"I do like my hair," she said eventually, face moving beneath his hands, eyelashes flicking up and she shrugged almost in apology. "You know, for one."

This time he couldn't hold the smirk back.

She rolled her eyes, slapped off his hands, and he shifted closer, straddling her legs. "Yeah, I know you hate it."

His eyebrows flew up, even when he pushed at her shoulders and she fell back against his mattress, watching him with a bounce.

"I've never hated your hair for a single minute, Usako."

She blinked, but he knew she wouldn't find anything incriminating on his face, he had schooled his features once more.

He simply waited it out, perched above her.

She sighed. "I do like that I can sometimes make others feel at ease," she said, and he nodded. "It makes me happy."

"What else?" he prompted, and drew his finger along the edge of his towel across her chest, following the rise and fall of the top of her breasts, and the dip between.

Her eyes were a little darker when he flicked his back up to catch hers.

"I do know that I can be a badass if I want to," she said, and he smiled, and nodded for her to go on.

"And I'm the _Best_ at eating and sleeping and encouraging others. I like those things. I'm confident in those things."

He smiled wider. "What else?"

She bit her lip in thought, eyes on him, and he drew his fingers up her shoulders, just the pads of them, two hands and two shoulders, and dragged them up the sensitive skin of her neck and watched her shiver.

The towel on her head came loose when she shifted under his touch and he watched mesmerized as her towel-damp hair was freed that little bit.

But nothing prepared him for the following blow to his heart.

"I know my friends and family love me. I know I can count on them," she said, head tilted and open and thoughtful. "With anything. I know that if I ever fuck up, they'll have my back anyway. I know I have a place where I belong and that it's safe."

He wasn't prepared for the hole filled with writhing, terrifyingly intense longing that opened up in his gut.

He managed to swallow it. Managed to simply nod.

"I know I'm insanely talented at driving you up the wall, too," she continued.

He knew she expected another smirk. A flirty remark. But it was too raw. He wanted her too much. He wanted to belong, too. He couldn't flirt over the fact that she thought for certain he found her a nuisance when she was all he'd ever wanted. He wanted to swallow up that frown on her lips when he didn't react for a while.

But it started him back up, and his voice was back to that damning, vulnerable whisper, his fingers curled around the side of her face and he leaned so, so close.

"You only drive me up the wall half the time," he breathed against her lips, eyes wide and watching hers.

Her eyes reacted, flashing. "What's the other half?" she threw back at him.

His heart hammered and he was a big, fucking coward. Instead of confessing, instead of whispering that the other half loved her way too much, he leaned in to kiss her slowly, and pressed her back into his bed.

But the kiss didn't stay slow. She opened her mouth for him and he became desperate. Pushed his tongue past her lips and whimpered into her mouth and went too fast.

His hands moved, then. His hips pressed into hers and he yanked at the towel she was in and ripped it from her.

He was a coward. Such a giant, fucking coward, and so all he could do to show her was what he'd been doing all this time.

If words were too hard, he just had to make her come so hard she would forever be forced to think of him whenever she did. Because he couldn't beg her with words, he had to make her come so hard that no one else but him would ever be enough for her.

Please, he wanted so badly to be enough for her.

She kissed back in a way that almost felt as desperate, twisting against him until her hair fell completely free and her hands were in his underwear, kneading into one buttcheek and clutching his balls and making him cry out against her collarbone.

And he cried out again, couldn't believe he was about to do it again.

"Who is he?!" he cried against her throat.

Her hands slipped from his underwear immediately, his cock pressing against her naked, frozen body, and she didn't speak.

He panted against her too hard, hands curling into the sheets around her in frustration.

"...You'd laugh at me," she whispered, and it coursed through him and made him flaccid so much faster.

He pressed his eyes closed and his face hard against her skin. "So I know him?" he choked out, muffled against her skin.

She didn't speak.

He rolled off of her, rubbed his hands over his face and groaned.

Then he stayed like that, breathing hard, and the mattress dipped and bounced and he ripped them back open, watched her rummage in her cursed backpack and slip on a pair of fresh cotton underwear.

Why wouldn't she just use his drawer? Why wouldn't she just take up space in his life and stay? _Please_.

It all built up in his chest when he saw her reach for his drawer and pull out one of his shirts. It fell to her thighs, dwarfing her, and made his chest ache even harder.

"You know how some people are really adamant about needing their space and belonging to no one and needing to be independent?" he babbled out, because it wouldn't stay locked in, and his heart hammered even harder immediately when she whipped her eyes to his. "You know? Not losing yourself etc.?"

She was frowning and it dried out his mouth.

"I think... I think I'm kind of the opposite," he croaked out like a little boy confessing a crime, and his heart swam in alarm at the concern in her eyes and so he had to look away.

He fell back on his back, hands in his hair, and fixed his eyes to the ceiling.

"I don't have anyone who would miss me much if I were gone. I might not even be a noticeable absence for a while if I'm honest."

Usagi's voice was shrill. The mattress dipped again, but he didn't turn his eyes to her.

"Why would you think that?! Mamo-chan, I—"

He sighed, interrupted her, shook his head, and confessed to the ceiling. "I really, really want to belong to someone. I really want to be…"

He swallowed. ( _Yours. I want to be yours_.) "Someone's," he whimpered, frustrated. "And I want—"

(You. I want _you_.)

He choked back a cry, willed his eyes to stay dry, glared at his ceiling. "I want... that this person is with me. Always. All the time. In fact, I think I'm a bit messed up," he croaked. "I want them to get jealous when others want to be with me, because I want that they want ALL of me and they want no one else to have me and because I am so important to them to make them feel this petty, this _possessive_. Like, honestly, I'm messed up."

He felt her hands curl against his arm, but he didn't look. "You said I'm so independent. And I _am,_ but… Usako, I want to be wanted so hard they'd want to _drown_ me before they ever let me go. I want to be enveloped until I can't ever flee again, so I know they'd never leave me, too. I guess ... I really want to... be claimed? Branded? I want to be KEPT and smothered and captured and imprisoned and…"

He breathed out a slow, too shaky breath. "I want to belong."

And when he looked at her finally, her eyes were wide, so, so wide, and swimming in unshed tears for him.

He'd… He'd never been someone's... anything. Grandchild. Son. Relative. Boyfriend. He was never anyone's... anyone. He wanted to be someone's someone. HER someone. HER anything, really. He wasn't even picky. Whatever she wanted to have him as, as long as the word "my" was involved.

_I want to be yours. I want to be yours so terrifyingly, achingly badly._

He really should have kept his mouth shut. It would have all stayed the same if he'd kept his mouth shut. And really, he didn't even know what kind of force it was in him that shoved it all out; what masochistic penance he felt he'd needed to pay for the past four perfect days that he'd felt so close to getting what he wanted that he would do this now; why he sabotaged himself like this. Why now?

No, he had no one to blame but himself. But he just had to go and blow this all up.

Her fingers dug painfully into his arm, when one tear tumbled from her eyes.

"If I'm honest…" he said, reaching up to wipe it away with his thumb wordlessly, "it's why I did all this."

She sniffed, eyebrows moving into a frown.

"I'm not the person you see me as. When you came by that first night and I told you I needed time to prepare? I spent that time researching how to make a woman come."

She blinked, moved back a little. "…what?"

"I was terrified," he whispered, sitting up slowly, and speaking first to his hands, then her startled face. "I thought that was my only chance. And if I pretended not to be a virgin, then maybe…"

Her eyes morphed into alarm so, so quickly. " _What_?"

"I—"

"Mamo-chan?!" She sounded choked up, shocked, rose to her knees in agitation. "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you—Oh god, I'm SO fucking sorr—"

"Usako!" he interrupted.

Her hands flew into her hair, and she pulled at a damp strand. "I.. why didn't you…"

"Tell you I was a virgin?" He frowned.

"Yes!"

He felt his brows furrow even harder. "It would have mattered," he said.

"What?! Do you think I—of course it wouldn't have mattered!" she yelped, hopping on her knees in agitation.

She grunted in frustration and it sounded appalling much like panic."I… I honestly thought you'd—" she swallowed, wide-eyed, and he frowned even harder at her.

"I thought you'd… I thought you'd have done that a lot. And I… I would have never known!" she cried.

"And no, it wouldn't have mattered!" she tacked on, fear taking up her face.

He glared. He couldn't help it. "Yes, it would have."

"No!"

"It does right now!" he hissed back, and she recoiled.

He was breathing hard. "You wouldn't have asked me," he said after a beat of silence, and her mouth popped open.

"That's not true!" she yelped, but closed her mouth as suddenly.

He gave her a look that was probably too dark.

"It… It… Well. Maybe...I…" She looked absolutely helpless.

"It would have," he said.

She jumped from the bed and started pacing, fists clasped at her chin. He hated it.

"I would have felt like taking advantage of you," she cried, then her eyes widened. "I _did_ take advantage of you... Oh god, Mamo-chan, that day when you came so fast, it was because—"

He glared, and her whole face wobbled.

"I'm such a— I should have— Your first time is supposed to be about _you_. This whole thing was about _me_...I'm…"

"Don't you dare say you're sorry," he hissed.

"But I _am_ …" she cried, and he saw it, she was breaking. All the tears swam in her gaze and threatened to break free and never stop, he saw it.

She was regretting it. She was regretting _him_ —

He couldn't take it.

"I'm not," he hissed, dark and menacing.

She whimpered, pressed her hands against her mouth.

He jumped up, too, got in her face, got too angry.

"So, what if I didn't have sex before?!" he shouted at her.

"It's a big deal!" she shouted back.

"It's really not! _You_ were the one to tell me it's not!"

In fact, he was now more sure than ever that had she known, she wouldn't have asked him for this. Had she known, he wouldn't have had sex with her. And really, that was the only thing he wanted for his first time: for it to have been with her.

"It's not magic, Usako," he growled. Too mean, too dark. "I put my dick in you. I hadn't done that before."

(Except it was magic, of course, because SHE was.)

Her whole form trembled, her eyes were staring, pained daggers. He couldn't take it.

"You're supposed to be in love for your first time," she mumbled wetly. "I took that from you. It's supposed to be special…"

Who says I wasn't?

...Is what he wanted to say. Is what he SHOULD say.

"Are you saying it wasn't special?" is what he said instead - and he bit it out, dark and sarcastic and almost sardonic and her eyes flashed in hurt.

But apparently he wasn't finished.

"Do you... are we done now?" he pressed out, low and detached.

Alarm rose back in her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Now that you found out I'm not the sex guru you expected. Am I... fired? Is this over now?" he said, and it was hurt that turned his voice into that lofty mocking tone, but that's how it came out.

She opened her mouth, stretched into appallment.

"Do you think that's how I... do think I'd…"

He interrupted her, sounding too calm, too collected. "You came to me for advice. Now you know I never had any to give."

"Because you've never had sex before?!"

"Obviously," he said, his voice so deceivingly calm.

"Are you even listening to yourself?!"

"Usako," he growled. "Are we done?"

She shrunk back, curled in on herself.

"... do you …want us to be...?" she asked, voice so, so small.

He snapped his mouth shut.

Her voice turned almost hysterical, then. "Why did you pretend? Why didn't you just... tell me to go fuck off? Why did you…"

He crossed his arms. "I wanted to do it."

She turned wet, shimmering eyes back to him. "You wanted to...have sex?"

"No," he glared.

"You... didn't want to have sex?"

"No."

She pressed out a frustrated grunt. "... you're not making any sense."

He glared even harder, took a step towards her and looked down on her, hard and angry and too much like old times.

"Why me?" he growled down at her, and she took a step back.

"We... We talked about that…"

"Why me, Usagi," he bellowed, too harsh.

Not Usako, and he saw her eyes flash at that.

She curled her hands into the hem of his shirt and looked to the floor and he wanted to shake the answer out of her even if he never _ever_ would, wanted her to finally, finally answer and so he stood there rooted and afraid and—

"...I've been stupid," she whispered to the floor, almost angrily. "And blind. I thought you were a safe choice, but… Mamo-chan I, l—"

"Safe how?" he interrupted her with a stern expression and it made her swallow the words back down in sudden, visible trepidation.

"…Safe because I wouldn't take advantage?" he growled out, stepping back up into her space. "Safe from feelings? Safe because this would never be serious? Safe because you trusted me? What? Which was it?"

She took a step back and he followed.

"… yes," she whispered to the floor. "In the beginning… yes, all of those… I didn't realize that… but, Mamo-chan— _Now,_ I—"

She stepped back towards him, grabbed his hand, but he shook himself free.

He interrupted her again. "You wanted a fuck buddy? Friends with benefits?"

She was so visibly taken aback.

"I'm not your friend, Usagi."

"...I'm aware," she whispered wide-eyed.

He hated himself. He really, really hated himself. Had never hated himself more. Why couldn't he just _shut up?_

And so, of course he needed to make it worse.

"…we should practice now," he snapped, and she started.

"Telling someone you like them," he barked. "It's time."

"What?!"

He glowered at her, because he was a fucking asshole who lashed out when he was hurt. He knew he'd lost.

"You wanted to learn how to tell this guy you like him. Let's do it," he said through gritted teeth.

"No."

"Why the _fuck_ not?" he hissed. "C'mon, if you stood in front of the guy you liked, what would you say?"

Her eyes were wide, her voice was small, and it took her shining eyes a moment, but then she spoke in a broken voice, eyes terrifyingly fixed on his.

"… I'm in love with you," she croaked. Her voice a begging, desperate, vulnerable lilt. "I have been for a long time now."

He held his breath, and she did, too. An odd, intense silence.

It was a reflection of the exact same words he had said to her, weeks ago now. And it hurt. It hurt so much, but he was so very used to hurt, and so he simply allowed his mask to slip so easily back in place.

"Well," he said, calm, collected, almost conversationally. "There you go, you're good to go."

And then her eyes spilled over, tears running down her cheeks. "Mamo-chan!" she choked out.

He turned away. "You should go now," he said, too calm.

* * *

_You should go now._

She only sobbed later. Deep and ugly and broken.

But for a moment, she managed to keep it together. And she was never more relieved that she'd never unpacked that backpack - that she could just yank a pair of shorts up her legs and tuck his shirt into it, grab her bag and make a run for it.

He didn't stop her.

In fact, he studiously didn't watch her. He sat back down on the edge of the bed and looked out the window, grabbed the sheets white knuckled until he shoved them back.

By the time she left the apartment, he'd long stood on his balcony - the only room to flee available in his one room apartment, his curtains fluttering wildly in the dark to the click of the closing door.

She only sobbed when she was out on the street, cried so hard it hurt her chest, and ran.

A few passersby called after her, concerned, until she couldn't take it anymore.

She couldn't take this. She didn't want to go home, she couldn't go to her parents like this.

But she knew one thing she could do.

She'd made it into dark and deserted Arisugawa-no-Miya park, sat on their bench and watched the clock tower in the fountain until she calmed down, watched the hands move almost two hours until she finally transformed in the dark.

Tuxedo Mask took a little longer to arrive than he usually would, looked a little off, didn't speak at first.

He just stood there and waited.

"Where's the youma?" he asked after a while, and his voice sounded incredibly hoarse.

But she didn't turn. Instead, she inhaled deeply and watched the clock tower. _Their_ clocktower.

She'd trained all this time to speak to him, after all. At least in theory. If she fucked up everything else, she could at least do that, she supposed.

"Can I speak to you?" she croaked out, eventually.

She turned when he didn't immediately answer, and recoiled. His eyes behind his mask where red-rimmed in a way she'd never seen.

But he nodded.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've watched a documentary about Love and Sex around the world by Christiane Amanpour on Netflix the other day, and it had an episode soley on Tokyo. So yeah, it brings a few things into perspective: especially Mamoru's canon (non-)ability to communicate with his soulmate, and his lack of plentiful 'I love you's, and puts it into a very interesting cultural context. I can only recommend checking it out! (And if you need a contrast - the Berlin one is really good too, and speaks from my soul lol.)
> 
> ANYWAY, next chapter will be the last (and then probably an epilogue following that)! Please feed me reviews I am a greedy horderer of those, lol.   
> Mwah! 💋


	12. Confession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a little emotional right now. I'm always emotional finishing a fic. But with this one, I'm really happy, and I hope you're happy with it, too. But here it is, my detoxed version of one of my favorite guilty pleasure tropes, done in a way I think it's sex-positive and healthy. (Sans a small epilogue).
> 
> (And obviously I kinda hope this fic ages badly and our societies will get still much, much better at all this, and way way more mindful of treating each other well sexually, and we'll be LEAPS ahead one day and cringe our eyes at what I wrote here in 2020, too, lol. Because let's hope for all the progress in this matter!)
> 
> Anyway, more notes at the end with LOTS OF THANKS BECAUSE I LOVE YOU GUYS, and here you go.

* * *

The Unintentional Seduction of Chiba Mamoru  
Chapter 12: Confession

* * *

_Can I talk to you…?_

She's never seen Tuxedo Mask like this. He looked… he looked…

He looked broken. He stood stooped, his shoulders hung limp, his gestures were slow, his face didn't find a whisper of a smile, puffy and empty, and his _eyes…_

He'd been crying.

Everything in her constricted, panicked. Her heart went irrationally aflame for him and yowled protectively. This was wrong. And she'd… She'd made him come out like this even when there was no danger, what kind of asshole _was_ she ?!—

"Wait," Sailor Moon gasped loudly, shocked, and took a concerned, reactive step towards him. "Are you ok?!"

He took a step back, eyes not really fixed anywhere, more roaming about the place but never landing on her eyes.

He sighed, deep and long and it felt painful to Sailor Moon to look at.

What the fuck had happened?!

"Did anything happen to you?" she gasped out. "Did someone do something to you? Because I _swear_ I'll—"

His voice carried no force when he interrupted her.

"What did you want to talk about…" he mumbled in a too small voice.

She faltered, hand still in the air — she'd been reaching up towards his face and stopped herself.

"I'm so sorry for dragging you out like this," she said after a beat, wide-eyed and so, so, so _sorry_. The regret must have been pouring from every single one of her pores and she hated herself a little. "You can go home!" she begged. "This can wait!"

He sighed again, and this time, his sad eyes found her. "What did you want to talk about?" he repeated.

She looked at him. Perhaps a bit too searching.

He sighed and sat down on the rim of the fountain, gloved hand folding between his knees, waiting.

She followed, a bit relieved. Where he'd sat, she couldn't see that damn bench, and gravitated to stand in front of him.

She swallowed, he fiddled with his gloves, eyes cast down.

"Hey…" she said, tentatively, couldn't believe what she was about to ask, but… but people didn't look like this normally, there were only so many explanations, and she _really_ hoped no one close to him had died… "How is it going with that girl…?"

His eyes whipped up, red-rimmed behind his mask and frowning at her in confusion, in alarm, and a glare not unlike the one she knew from Mamoru.

She shifted uncomfortably from one leg to another and then, with a jerk of uncoordinated movement, whipped next to him to sit on the rim of the fountain beside him.

The stone was awfully cold, and she flinched when her butt was assaulted with it. These stupid, too short "battle" skirts weren't made for sitting, or really made to be convenient for _anything_.

But her cold ass gave her some courage to be frank.

"The one you keep sighing about?" she carefully ventured.

His look turned frustrated, and so uncharacteristically _dark_ and—

"What did you want to talk about," he hissed. No longer a question.

She knew she was turning a bit jumpy. And this was a weird situation. First time she was attempting to comfort the man she'd put on a pedestal for so, so long, and… But she was _good_ at comforting, and besides…

Sometimes nothing was more comforting than comforting someone else, and gosh, she needed comfort herself.

"Well, I don't mean to assume," she babbled on, wringing her own hands between her naked knees. "I just thought that…"

A sharp, frustrated grunt. A hand rubbing across his mouth.

"Or maybe it's not a _girl_ , I didn't mean to assume THAT either of course I… just.. " she trailed off with a flinch. "You _can_ shut me up, just…"

She trailed off, left the offer hanging. An owl was hooting somewhere in the dark park, a streetlight far in the distance was flickering, and only his too deep, too shaky sighs were heard, but neither of him moved.

She bit her lip when it was silent for too long, when her mind again started filling her head with what she'd done to Mamoru, and how she—

"There is a girl, yes," he whispered, almost too low to pick up on.

But she did, and all her breath caught in her lungs.

"Oh," she said, dumbly. And she hated herself for how much that could still _hurt_ when she—

"But it's over now," he tacked on.

Yup, the hate was strong for herself tonight. This wasn't a very nice or gracious feeling either, for _either_ of them, that awful relief in her stomach at hearing that.

"Oh…"

He shrugged pitifully and the cape moved against the naked skin on her upper arms, between short sleeved bodice and the strengthened hem of her gloves.

"It wasn't meant to be," he breathed out in one long, defeated sigh.

"I'm sorry," she sighed right along, and was happy that this at least was very true. She wanted him to be happy more than anything else. It would have made the whole thing easier, even if she couldn't deny part of her would hurt.

He shrugged again, but it looked… it looked despondently sad.

"What happened…?" she asked carefully.

But he only shrugged again, and didn't speak.

"Why am I here, then?" he asked instead, visibly steeling his voice and finding her eyes. His hands curled on top of his knees, stemming.

She shook her head. "It's stupid and the worst possible moment I could pick. I'll find my courage another time."

He frowned. "Your… courage?"

She exhaled audibly, and got up. Only when she was standing above him did she look back at him.

Beautiful, beautiful man.

He did look painfully much like Mamoru. Minako was right, she had a type.

"I'm sorry for dragging you out like this, I really am…" she said, and turned to go.

"Wait!" he yelled after her.

Her boots had clicked exactly twice when he caught her arm. It tingled where he touched, and she couldn't help but look down.

"Courage for…?" he prompted, eyes insistent.

She realized he'd probably never looked at her this intensely, this focused. Not since… not since their kiss, all those years ago, and it was a special kind of irony.

"Please, just tell me."

She scrunched up her nose. "It's a terrible thing to say when you're…" she trailed off.

"I can take terrible," he said, immediately, and then glanced down at her. "Is everything ok? Are you ok? Can I—"

Man, yeah. She knew why she'd been hung up on this man for so, so many years now. Why couldn't he just be… be…

She sighed, set her jaw, looked up at him. "Please keep in mind that I changed my mind and didn't want to tell you this tonight," she started.

He nodded.

And waited.

And somehow really, the words were there.

"I uh… I wanted to tell you that I… that I… I've been in love with you for the longest time…" she started. And he froze—

"And it's taken me forever but I've finally given up on you. _Finally_. It's… it's the only right thing I can do tonight, and I…"

His eyes were… shaken up. "You're giving… up on me?"

His hands flew to his head, lingered around his hair, then flew to his mouth. His eyes were wide, so wide, and she flinched.

"Well, it's taken me… SO long to fall out of love and…"

"Wait…" he said, shaking.

He took a step closer to her and… and she felt herself blush really, really hard.

His reaction wasn't… But what _had_ she expected? She _knew_ he didn't— and—

"You… you were in love with me?" He said, shoulders falling.

She dug her fingers into that flimsy skirt. "…wasn't it obvious?"

"I…" he croaked, pacing, eyes blown wide and lips moving more than he talked. "I'm… really sorry."

He settled back down on the rim of the fountain, took off his top head, ran his hands through his hair, and jumped back up sans hat, pacing again.

She exhaled and let one shoulder lift and drop. "I know," she said. "Of course, you would be!"

He looked at her almost frightened, nervous. She'd never seen his heart (and concern) so on his sleeve.

"I'm really, really sorry," he managed, hands fidgeting, eyes flitting from her to the cloudy, ink black sky and back. "I know how terrible it feels to— to—"

"To be in an unrequited love?" she finished with a sad smile, and his shoulders dropped as if she'd punched him.

"...Yeah," he said. "I'm really sorry."

It did hurt. She wouldn't lie to herself, it did. Even when she was making the right decision to let go of it.

She loved Mamoru more, if it was done or not. She knew that now.

"Well, as I was saying," she said too brightly, too fake-confidently. "I'm over you." She nodded decisively.

He sighed. Sat back down on the rim, and sighed again, eyes turning thoughtful.

She pressed her lips together and sat back down next to him.

His legs were restless, jiggling.

"How did you do it?" he asked eventually, quietly.

She whipped her eyes to him. "Do what?" she asked.

He shrugged with a dejected, thoughtful look and downturned eyes. "Get over someone."

Oh.

She flinched. Hemmed and hawed. "Eh," she pressed out. "Maybe don't try my technique."

His chin trembled when he exhaled - almost unnoticeably, she would have missed it had she blinked. "If it helps?" he said after a too long break.

She shook her head, slowly, dejectedly, drew her eyebrows together and let her chin drop to her chest in defeat.

"I don't know," she admitted in a listless voice. "It was really stupid. I was so, so stupid."

He threw her a look and she flushed in hopeless embarrassment, and shrugged, slow and limp and pitiful.

"Well, I looked out to find someone I thought I wouldn't fall in love with, to get my mind off you. Someone I knew from the start didn't think the world of me, and it ended with me falling in love with him," she said, and his brow furrowed.

Another too long sigh. "I fell in love with someone who told me to get lost today."

With this, his expression changed immediately He looked at her appalled. "What a fucking idiot."

She shook her head slowly, sadly. "He's not," she mumbled. "He was totally right to do that … It's not his fault. And I hurt him. And it's not his fault that he thinks l—"

She sighed. Tried again and faltered once more in the end anyway. "I've been… I don't know if this can…"

She drew her shoulders back, lifted herself up by the spine, and threw him a smile she knew was too sad and too fake. "...I'm somewhat of a hopeless case," she announced because it was fact. "I suck at love, it seems."

He grew quiet. Unresponsive for a second. "I suck at it, too," he said after a beat of silence.

Her eyebrows lifted. Wait, what? Tuxedo 'roses-and-poety' Mask? "You do?"

He nodded slowly, eyes cast to his hands. "I really, really do."

She turned to him. Frowned at him. "That's… really hard to believe."

He snorted and it sounded wet and chortled. "It's the honest truth," he sighed at his gloves.

She went quiet, arms hanging, and tried to not get lost in her head and Mamoru's angry eyes when he—

"So, what happened?" Tuxedo Mask asked, eyes turned down to her over his shoulder.

She flicked her eyes up in surprise.

He cringed. "If you want to talk about it, that is…"

She blinked, both eyebrows raised. "…Do YOU want to talk about it?"

He sighed, long and hard, and turned his eyes to the dark pit that was Arisugawa-no-Miya park at night.

"…I could use a distraction tonight honestly," he mumbled after a beat.

She flinched. But really, he was… onto something. She exhaled loudly and pained, and couldn't believe she was about to tell her failures to _Tuxedo Mask_ of _all people_ but… But he'd asked and…

She flinched even harder, and yet her lips moved.

"Well, this was actually Venus's idea…"

He raised both eyebrows.

She scrunched up her nose sheepishly, started rambling, flushed and fast. "Yeah… well… The idea wasn't bad. It really wasn't. And it did work, and—"

"What was the idea?" he interrupted, calmly.

She swallowed a word, nodded, flinched again, head tilted at him almost in apology. "Start something casual with someone I could never ever hurt and I have the hots for anyway, and then if I get over you, yay, and if I don't, no harm done, I could get back to pining for you. But then…" she trailed off.

But then… then his gaze whipped to hers. Shocked. Absolutely, completely shocked and freezing rigidly, mouth open, eyes bulging…

...And immediately, that absolutely _exaggerated_ shock on his face made her feel more than a little judged, and she regretted having been that open after all, and shrunk a little but kept talking, because when in doubt, just talk faster, even if now towards her hands.

"It took me forever to ask him in the first place, really. But, I mean, how _do_ you ask someone to like… 'hey, I wanna fuck you, but I'm also into someone else that I'm really not over so, hey, wanna give me some pointers here how to go about that sex thing that I can maybe use on someone else while I scratch an itch or two'? That's _weird_ ," she spat out, glaring at her hands.

He jumped up, stumbling, and he looked her up and down.

"What?" She asked, feeling insulted.

"Nothing," he stammered. "Go on."

He looked at her with eyes that seemed to see someone else in her, this intense, focused stare and at the same time this far-away look that felt like he's comparing, like he's trying to fit her into the image of someone not her, and it made her skin crawl. Was he this— That didn't fit. She hadn't thought he was so narrow-minded as to _judge_ her, it was her full _right_ to—

She shrugged, tense. Clipped. "There's not much more to tell."

But then she deflated and groaned into her hands. "I had sex with him with a Tuxedo Mask doll in my _bed_. How fucking _weird_ am I?!"

His hands _flew_ into his hair, eyes wide and—

She grunted into her hands, rocked forward towards her knees, voice muffled. "I'm a stupid, fucking helpless case and I…" she inhaled sharply and looked up at him, determined, jaw sat.

He was _staring_.

"Anyway," she said, licking her lips, and trying not to flinch away from his intense look. "I promised him I'd forget you. So. This is me forgetting. That's all…"

He stared. Stared and stared and stared. And then, suddenly, he sputtered, as if in his shock he'd only just registered what she had said. "He… He begged you to forget… to forget ME," he pressed out, with a strange, pressed laugh.

Her eyebrows flew up, her shoulders flew back.

But he took a step closer, and with it, his shock made way for… He had never looked at her like that and it…

He was being so _weird._

His tone was almost wondrous. "You said this guy he… you said you fell in love with him…"

She frowned, clutched her knees. "I did."

And then the shock was back, even when he gravitated close towards her, hands in his hair and eyes wide and breath _stuttering_ and…

She was beginning to worry.

"Tuxedo Mask…?"

He talked right over her, fists in his hair - it was turning into an utter mess and—

"And you said…" he pressed out, almost _crazed—_ "You said you were in love with ME… All this time!"

She blushed. She was so confused. What was _happening_ here?!

But his eyes— Her own eyes widened when he… when he collapsed. He dropped to his knees right in front of her. "It was me," he whispered, wide-eyed.

She skidded forward, scooting down to her knees with him, arms raised. "Are you ok?!"

But he just kept on _staring_.

And then his eyes widened as if in _new_ shock and—

"I was your first kiss!"

Her eyes flew wide, even when he came closer, even when his voice grew surer, determined—

"It was _me_!" he cried. "It was me _all_ this time!"

And then he flew at her. His hands on her cheeks, on her hair and she shrieked and collapsed, her back against the asphalt and her head would have fallen against the rim of the fountain were his gloved hand not so protectively cradling her and then his _lips_ were on her _mouth—_

She whimpered, yanked her hands up, and they _shook_. Because this — this right here— was what she'd wanted for four years, what something in her would _always_ want, and his lips were perfect and she wanted to melt and fall and let it happen and he tasted like— like—

But now it was _wrong_.

She pushed him away with a torn whimper, hard and fast, and he let go of her immediately, arms flying away from her, eyes bigger than before.

"Hey!" she yelled, angry, ready to slap him into next year. "I just _told_ you I'm in love with another man, I—"

That stare lingered.

And then the air around him fluttered, glimmered, and her eyes widened because he was _de-transforming_ in front of her _eyes,_ and oh god—

And then her heart stopped.

"Yes, you did," Mamoru groaned, puffy eyes and wondrous tone, and he dove back in and lowered his lips to hers with those tender, gentle hands on her cheeks.

She pressed up to catch them. Whimpered into his mouth. Her mind exploded even when her hands started gripping, yanking at his hair and crying, and she _pushed_ her tongue into his mouth - needier, more insistent, more pressingly than she ever had - because she _needed—-_

What was this? How could this—

How could he be— ?! What even— What?!

She bit at his lip and he groaned and hiked up Sailor Moon's thigh around Mamoru's waist and stroked his hand across her naked skin and— and even when his mouth was so insistent, so crazed, his hands were so _gentle_ and—

She fell apart. She couldn't take this.

She pushed him away again, and his lips disconnected from hers without any fight whatsoever.

He was wearing the T-shirt she'd worn to sleep last night.

She choked. Pressed her hands to her mouth, and Mamoru's hands flew to her upper arms in utter alarm.

"Usako…"

She shook herself free and he let her go and the alarm in his eyes only grew.

"Oh god, I'm sorry, I didn't think, I—" he rushed out. "I shouldn't have kissed you like this, god I'm such an _asshole_ , I—"

He broke off when she turned abruptly.

"I… I need to…" she stuttered—

"No," he pressed out, jumped in her way, eyes wide open.

She pressed her gloved fists against her eyes.

"I need to go," she pressed out.

His alarm fizzled about him, shook his voice. "We need to talk!" he cried out, panicking.

"Please…" he begged. He was trembling. "Come home with me, let's talk…"

The air was rushing in her lungs, making her dizzy, everything _swam—_

She pressed her fists harder against her eyes. "I need to… I need to process this…"

She felt his hand at her elbow, and he was _shaking—_

"Usako."

And then she sobbed and his hand was gone from her elbow and he—

"Please," he begged, voice shaking, small, but she could only hear him, fists in her eyes. "At least let me take you… let me take you home, please, Usako…"

She jumped. Thighs bent and up into the trees and carrying her off blindly.

"Usako!"

* * *

How? _How_ had he not figured this out before?!

And how could he have behaved like… like…

Like the kind of man he never wanted to be. The kind of man he never wanted anyone to be. He'd never hated himself more.

He was so full of regret he felt like it was a gooey mass in his blood, thick like molasses and filling his veins until he was heavy and unmoving and petrifying from the inside.

His eyes blinked open again, and the sun glimmered back through his curtains. He sighed.

He'd slept maybe two hours of very interrupted sleep after his feet had finally carried him back home from that park when the sun was already rising. Then he'd lain awake and glared at his ceiling for he didn't know how long.

He'd always thought he was somewhat of a gentleman. He'd always been proud of that.

Turns out he was just another asshole. Kissing a woman when she was clearly distressed but he was too busy to notice, because she'd said she'd _loved_ him and she was _Sailor Moon_ and— and—

 _How_?!

And he never said it back.

He never said he loved her _back—_

She didn't let him bring her home. She was having a panic attack and he was supposed to be a future _doctor,_ and yet he let her go home alone and didn't _follow_ her to make sure she was alright, and—

But he _couldn't—_ How could he have followed her when she was running away from _him_?!

He knew from the start that he'd fuck things up when Tsukino Usagi sat stuttering in front of him and asked him to have casual sex with him to learn a thing or two. He hadn't had any doubt about that. But turns out, he couldn't have _fathomed_ to what _extent_ he would fuck this up—

He spent the rest of his morning hogging his phone. Pressing on her contact way too often and let it ring ...not at all.

He tried to get some work done, his textbooks pretty much all propped open, his fresh notebook absolutely blank. Who was he even kidding?

His shower was meant to distract him but it just reminded him of what had transpired in it just two weeks ago and also, what was it about running water that made it so easy to get lost in one's thoughts? That made the doubts scream like a screeching cacophony ricocheting off the tiles and echoing so loud in his mind, and he couldn't drown it out?

He snatched up his phone again and felt like screaming. Feral and loud and frustrated and—

Until he burst. He didn't even know what his plan was until he was already climbing on his motorcycle and kicking it into gear.

But there was no one at her apartment and he hit his head repeatedly against the wood of her door until a neighbor poked his head out from 3B.

Of course there wouldn't be.

He ran back down the staircase without apologizing for the noise.

A bit later, breathless and terrified, he held his helmet awkwardly underneath his elbow, having forgotten to tuck it back into his bike's casket and too scared that if he turned back now to remedy the fact, he'd lose his nerve, and so he knocked.

Golden blonde hair and a scowl greeted him, and Mamoru was painfully aware of the way his tongue stuck to his gums in his too dry mouth as he looked down and tried to find his words.

"Yes?" The boy prompted, (Usagi's brother, his scattered brain supplied) shifting his hands into a 'go on, what do you want,' gesture and lifting his eyebrows when Mamoru still did not regain the ability to speak.

What would he even say to her? Sorry for freaking out like that. Sorry for kissing you without your consent. Sorry for pretending to be things I wasn't. Sorry for fucking you without letting you know I love you so hard I might just die from it. Sorry for kicking you out afterwards. Sorry for telling you the things I did in the way I did. Sorry for making us suffer for years. Turns out I was insanely jealous of myself.

"Um.. aren't you that guy from—" Shingo started with a frown when words still wouldn't—

He shook his head. "Is Usagi home?" Mamoru pressed out, a little too fast, a little too loud.

The boy rolled his eyes, his hands back at the door. "She went out a while ago."

Mamoru couldn't help the slump of his shoulders. "Oh," he said.

He didn't get a lot of further information out of the boy who apparently couldn't care less about the whereabouts of his older sister or leaving her a message (don't you know how to use a phone?) before the door closed on him and he slumped down on his bike with a heavy and defeated sigh.

The ride back was a meandering and disappointed curl of emotions, and why was this stupid fucking city so bright and green today?

He locked his motorcycle up in the garage by his apartment complex, and instead of going straight up he made the detour to the nearest Family Mart, simply because he couldn't bare being alone with his thoughts again in a room that smelled like Usagi. And so he stocked up on unhealthy spicy instant ramen of the kind _she_ would eat because he was a masochist, and walked home with a plastic bag hanging from his wrist and a set of slumped shoulders that seemed to mimic the drooped look of it.

The elevator opened with its usual ding and he exited on sluggish feet as he dug his keys from his pocket only to nearly trip over his legs when he finally looked down the hall.

Usagi's eyes met his as she got up from her perch next to his door, a white box of the place Makoto worked at moving from her lap to her hands and then got pressed awkwardly against her stomach when she stood.

He wanted to punch himself for the fact that his greeting words were not 'I love you', or even, 'marry me', or maybe, 'I'm a dumb asshole, but also _your_ dumb asshole for the rest of time', but instead, "Have you been waiting long?"

She shrugged in that uncomfortable way, standing way too far away from him.

"Half an hour maybe..."

He swallowed. That was probably almost exactly when he left to go to her place...

"I mean, I didn't know if you— I should have called—"

"No!" he yelped out and flinched because her eyes flickered in worry and back to the case she held against herself, and he knew that came out wrong.

"I mean— I— I could have called too. I wanted to," he swallowed.

"You did?"

He nodded maybe a little too much.

"Why didn't you?" she asked, voice small.

His words were gone again. All run out. So was his breath. He had heartbeat to spare, though.

"I—"

He looked around. Heard the soft clinking of his keys in his trembling hands and it jolted him alive, and he moved to unlock his door with uncharacteristically clumsy movements, and held it open wide for her.

"Do you— do you want to come in?"

And _god_ , how was this so _awkward_? She'd been cuddling with him in his bathtub just yesterday, and now it felt like she'd never been here.

Or like he was seeing her for the first time. And somehow, he supposed he was. Seeing all of her for the first time. Every facette.

He supposed the way he looked at her must feel weird to her, too. She was flicking her eyes up to him and back away, over and over, and his chest hurt looking at her and—

He hadn't thought he could feel even _more_ for Usagi… and yet…

Sailor Moon was the second best person he knew. He'd give his life for her in a heartbeat. He trusted her like no one else. He'd fallen down elevator shafts with her (... _Oh_.) He shared a magic connection with her. Had gone through hell with her.

He loved her. (Apparently, more than he'd realized.)

And she was _Usagi_ … Had _been_ Usagi _all this time.._.

He'd been having sex with _Sailor Moon_ … And he'd had _no idea_...

Where were all these words he'd wanted to say, now?

In the most stilted, cringeworthy dance, he took the box from her when she bent in his tiny genkan to take her ankle boots off and his whole body tingled from not reaching out, from not even standing near.

He put the box down on his counter with a whisper of a thud and rested his hands against the box as he steeled his nerves. Then he walked around the counter, opened a drawer for two spoons, and stretched up to his high shelf to get at the small bread plates he stored up there.

When he got them down, Usagi was some distance beside him, and staring where his shirt had momentarily slipped up as he'd reached to bare some of his midriff, and he broke out in goosebumps as if she'd touched him.

"I kept wondering where you got that body from…" she said in a voice that was too hoarse. "I guess now I know."

His eyes flew to hers and were probably a bit too frightened.

Guess they were going right _there_.

He swallowed thickly, turned back to the counter, and lifted the box for two small, glistening domed cakes. Some sort of berry cream with paper-thin, dried citrus slices and a small chocolate disk placed on top that carried the logo of the patisserie Makoto worked at.

Which probably meant the girls already knew. Who were probably the Senshi. Who Usagi apparently had sought out and wanted to talk to when she hadn't wanted to talk to him.

He placed the cakes on the two plates with a lump in his throat, but when he was done with that, he just stood there, and didn't lift them to carry them over, or offer her one.

She was fidgeting.

"... I'm sorry you had to see the Tux doll…" she said meekly. "That must have been…"

But with that he turned, full-body, trembling hands and all, and found her eyes. "Amazingly flattering?" he interrupted her.

Her eyes flashed up at him. "Uh…"

He tried to swallow around the lump in his throat, and stepped up. With trembling fingers, he brushed that precious fluffy, fuzzy lock of hair behind her ear. The one he loved, the one that would escape her hair buns first halfway through a day, the one he'd been allowed to touch so freely lately.

Her eyes were wide, she licked her lips, and came a little closer.

"...I didn't even question for a second why you so conveniently always tended to run off right before a battle," he told that lock of hair quietly.

She pressed her lips together, brought her hands up to curl into his shirt, and he only then noticed that her hands were trembling, too.

"I asked the guy I was trying to confess to to have casual sex with me and he said yes," she told his shirt, and he swallowed.

And then she flicked her eyes up at him, and he felt it like a punch to the heart.

"I think I fucked this all up very badly…" she said, teeth pushing into her lower lip briefly.

He found himself mimicking the action pretty much unconsciously, his eyes flicking between hers.

His heart was so fucking _loud_.

"I fucked up way before that," he murmured, swallowing thickly. "I stopped pursuing the woman I kissed because I wanted her to want to kiss me."

"Uh…" She blinked at him.

"That made sense in my head, I promise," he added quickly with a cringe.

But it broke the tension, somehow, and he couldn't help a relieved huff when she smiled at him. A confused smile, but it was a smile.

Her hand stroked up and down his shirt, up and down his chest. It was when it was level with his pecs that he slapped his own hand on top of hers, and pressed her hand against his heart.

She looked up. It was still startled, still skittish, but… but warm. She was blushing.

It was the _exact_ same way Sailor Moon had looked at him for _years_.

"You look exactly the same," he breathed out, incredulous. "I feel so absolutely stupid."

Usagi flushed, her thumb stroked his chest beneath his firm hold on her hand. "Yeah," she agreed, eyes on their hands. And then she shrugged; just the smallest quirk of her shoulder and tilt of her head and those beautiful eyes were bat at his. "I asked Luna about it. She said something about ancient glamouring magic that… well, we couldn't have known."

...Luna...

His eyes widened and he smacked his forehead. _Luna_. As in her cat. As in Sailor Moon's exact same cat, as in… He was so _stupid_.

She shrugged again, visibly amused by the nonverbal display on his face. "Powerful magic," she said, as if it explained everything.

Yeah...

But when he got his head back in the game, he noticed she was on her tiptoes, her eyes uncharacteristically shy, her head tilted up, and she… she kept licking her lips.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Oh, _yes_. Yes, _please_.

When he finally got it, he basically _fell_ against her mouth, lips first. Freed her fingers against his chest and cradled her cheeks in both his hands and kissed her as if he'd never kissed her before.

Kissed her like he used to kiss her when they started all this, slow and tentative and mindful, brushing and slipping and tasting. Painfully slow, painfully beautiful. Probing her mouth except he already had the cheat codes to what she really, really liked.

Their lips parted with the softest little smack between them, and he didn't move far, kept just as close, her face in his hands.

Her eyes fluttered open slowly, lingered on his lips, then moved up to his open, waiting eyes - directly in front of her. He stood absolutely awkwardly stooped, and ready should she want another go.

"You were my first kiss," she whispered up at him, and her words brushed against lips.

He nodded, brushed his thumb along her jaw. "And you were mine."

And then her brow puckered, eyebrows drawing together on that precious face.

"And then you ghosted me," she stated.

He nodded harder, exhaled harshly, breath against her lips. "I know," he breathed pathically, lamenting. "I'm the biggest idiot in the fucking universe."

He brunches his fingers against her cheeks, her jaw, her skin in complete synchronicity, both his hands doing exactly the same, perhaps a bit peculiarly. But she just curled her hands a bit tighter in his shirt and spoke with that same tone.

"That day after," she implored, pulling at him. "You said you overheard me talking about it…"

He nodded again, index fingers stroking along cheekbones. "I did, yes." His breath came out as one shudder of regret. "It made me so jealous I felt like hitting something. I realised I'd been in love with you forever. It killed me.`You don't have any idea how much it—"

But with that her eyes bulged and she recoiled away from his hands in shock. He held them up, felt his own eyes widening and confusion. What was it? What had he done? What—

He went over what he'd said in his head, and then he found the culprit with widening eyes.

Oh.

"Wait, what?" she gasped up at him, too far away now.

"You.. you do? You… you…" she stuttered, lowered her eyes, they flitted about, then back to him, and he swallowed, and straightened up.

She clutched her hands into her hair, one hand for each streamer of gold and pulled adorably, frustrated. "And… and… but I'd been kissing YOU!"

"It seems you were," he answered way too easily.

Somehow, really, her freak-outs were diametral to his. When she was exploding, he was calming down, and vice versa. It was probably something they would have to work on in the future...

In the future… In _their_ future. Possibly. Maybe.

He was breaking off that thought, because scratch that, he was beginning to freak out again.

But she'd already flown off, pacing the length of his green rug with toenails painted baby blue. Toes he'd dropped tiny kisses on only yesterday. Toes he hoped to kiss like that again.

He sat down on his couch. Watched her. He knew better, now. He waited it out, watched her face morph through emotion until she'd processed… whatever she needed to process exactly.

There was a lot to process, after all.

It was almost random, when her eyes finally flitted to his, and she settled on the couch beside him.

"Well…" she said, and her voice was once again steady, and he exhaled.

"We do have a few lessons I still ought to be taught… right?" She said, and with it, she was climbing on his lap, and his breath caught, and his spine snapped up straight, and he now had to look up at her instead of the other way around.

And then her hands curled into his hair, against his scalp, the way she did when… when...

His throat was dry when he tried to swallow, when he tried to moisten his lips.

"I think we do," he whispered.

She leaned down, brushed her tongue against his lower lips, and he opened his mouth with a moan.

But it was short. Too short, and he whimpered again when her mouth detached from his with a wet noise when she'd barely had her tongue in his mouth yet, even when that was where it _belonged—_

"There was one in particular we've been putting off," she whispered, her eyes on his lips.

And it hammered in him, speeding up and breaking out.

"Yes," he said, nodding slowly.

"One you said was the hardest," she said, and shifted in his lap, and he lowered his eyes at the way she shifted against him trying to drive home her point.

His hands flew to her sides, dug into her shirt, one of them slipping beneath and grabbing at warm, soft flesh—

And his heart really was threatening to kill him, because this was actually happening, Usagi was here and was _Sailor Moon_ and he was—

"How do you tell someone you like them?" she prompted.

"I don't like you," Mamoru managed to scrape out through his raw throat and she momentarily jerked back, emotion flashing across her eyes and he grabbed her hips and pulled her nearer because he hadn't made his point, yet.

He craned his neck up, up, up towards her, focused on her eyes trying to catch every tiny little reaction, every last twitch in her eyelids, every freckle in her gorgeous eyes.

"I worship you," he said, and it felt like it wooshed from him and freed him. Finally. _Finally_. "I adore you. I dream of you," he corrected himself and her eyes still flashed, now with a different set of emotions, and he tugged at her shirt and she came pliantly, lips falling open and they pressed against his but he didn't capture them.

How _did_ you tell someone you love them? That you're so consumed by them you could't think straight, that they made you stupid and reckless and clouded your judgement, and at the same time they made you better and selfless. And like the world needed to be shifted off its axis, because it was insane it wasn't revolving around _her_ yet? How did you put into words that nothing mattered more than her smile, that nothing is so important now than keeping that smile on her face? How did you tell someone 'I love you'?

"I love you," he whispered against her lips, and then he felt her fingers against his scalp and tangled in his hair and yanking at him as her tongue found his under a guttural moan until he ripped it back from hers. "You have no idea how stupidly, pathetically I'm in love with you."

"I love you, too," she murmured into his breath and he shuddered as he brushed his hands beneath her shirt and lifted it up, up and away because who invented shirts and what are they doing hiding what was HIS?

And there she was. And he was pretty sure he was ruining her bra trying to get it off but he'd just have to buy her a new one and then his nose buried in her skin. Against her collarbone, between her soft, plump breasts, against her throat and he inhaled sharply like a fucking creep. "I want to be yours," he whimpered, face pressed against her skin, hands pulling, clutching, claiming. "Yours. I want to be yours so badly," and it was his most basic truth. "So terrifyingly achingly badly."

And then her lips were at his temple, pressing a kiss against his skin, brushing his fringe out of face, and she uttered the best fucking words in the whole fucking world again, quietly, reverently, _true_.

"I love you…"

He couldn't help it, he was a blubbering mess, and he knew his eyes and face were wet because her skin was getting wet and he inhaled sharper and clutched harder and dug his hands into her skin even when her fingers moved across his front, unbuttoning his shirt, reaching for his pants.

"Say it again," he cried against her temple, wet and chortled and shaking.

Her hands at his cheeks, brushing the pads of her thumbs against his wet cheeks, her eyes wide and tender. "I love you," she promised.

"Again," he whimpered, moved. Open mouthed kisses against her chest, her neck, voice breaking. "Again," he begged. Again, again, again.

She babbled it out. I love you, I love you, I love you. Didn't stop and he shivered and broke apart above her with every word, the phrase a litany on her lips.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

And then he said it, too, babbled it out right along with her, until it was just sounds, until it echoed in his brain and would be branded there so neither of them might ever forget.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

When he flipped her over and yanked her panties down her hips and when he pressed wet kisses to her clit.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

When he pushed his pants just barely down his hips and she yanked his erection free from his underwear.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

When he brushed the tip of his cock back and forth across her slit and trembled, melting in her wetness, and kept going, going, going until her words were slurred.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

When he tapped his cock against her clit and she came and howled the words across his apartment, never stilling, and only then did he bury himself so deep it pushed her up the couch, breasts jutting, greeting him, her head flinging back, baring her neck.

The words were pressed breathless, painted and broken up, but she kept saying them. Over and over and over.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

He was crying. Bawling. Sobbing his 'I love you's against her skin and leaving wet trails on it, and she reached up and yanked at his face and kissed his tears right off his face. He was trembling, every muscle shivering under her firm touch, his hands kneading, molding, grabbing in large, digging handfuls. Hair, ass, breast, hips, cupping and pressing and stroking, cock rocking slow and deep and like fucking home.

It was when she stopped in a gasp and a giggle and a whimper when he drove into her to the hilt, slow and deep and his thumb at her clit, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she bucked her hips to meet him, that his hands flew up. He pressed them wet and messy against her cheeks, cradling, lifting - and his eyes were on her and hers were on him, dark and breaking as she looked at him with an intensity that made him feel like choking. It pooled in his throat so hard, and all the while he rocked into her, slow and hard and moving her across his couch and across his skin, slapping loud and wet between them as he withdrew and returned.

He was still crying when he came, and she was still there, and would always be there.

He was hers, now. He belonged.

_I love you, too._

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it! The last chapter finished and I hoped you enjoyed it. One small epilogue will follow, but this is where the plot concludes and you have NO IDEA HOW MUCH I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU HOW YOU LIKED IT! Whether you've reviewed before or not, I would happy cry to hear from you, lol! SO PLEASE TELL ME xD
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> So, you know what's going to happen now. It's the last full chapter of a multichapter of mine, so thanks are in order!
> 
> First, and always, my lovely, amazing, patient UglyGreenjacket who beta-ed this and reviewed for me and keeps me sane in all fic writing endeavors and troll-crying and has had my back for so long now. Thank you so, so much for your support, love!
> 
> And then, all of YOU. Everyone who has reviewed/commented any chapter of this novel-length beast on FF or Ao3 and has supported me with encouraging words. Multichapters are a beast to plan and outline and keep motivated to write, and without you guys, I wouldn't do it. I just wouldn't. So, in the very random order of me going back through all me reviews and finding you, thank you to all of you lovely people:
> 
> Daikon, Chococat, Tinatin, Sina, Kasienda, nihongal, Balalaica, KiernaRo, angeljme, Queen Risa, Tina Century, DeepComplaint, Ambrebastet, bunnybabi12, Auxcouleur, LinerRocks, Moonlight Usagi-Chan, Pia Bartolini, MyIndy13, Buttsaresoimportant, Branwynn_Heartfyr, Betty-Alexandria Pride, Mianngu, miraculousladybird, OMGTHEFEEL, from brooklyn, magical girl la, judeochop, Ninjette Twitch, dayfreshie, themoongeek, CrazyShipper101, Ellawhitee, Ifleurdelys2, angelcake, OrientalDanceGirl, MelissaMoonlight, moonwrite, HeyMichelle 360, Anyeline, Br girl, Astraearose-silvermoon, TropicalRemix, Gg, Adymlv, mindmybiz, Sailor Moon Has Balls [I LOVE YOUR PEN NAME], The_Rogue_Girl, jaondm, sg71293, Laura, Violentfrost, Starling_Sinclair, FierceKat, Irritablevowel, Antigone2, SMSara85, Tiararose16, netl, KrisG, rynoa29, McDesiJ, Hunnybuns, SailorMew4, Zanahana, DesertChik, lolopptt, LoveInTheBattleField, Jenbunny, lopezsheila787, starlights, mishkaroonie, ACloudyCat, fourfreedoms, Mokrelit, kyralih, Sessediz, AimlesslyGera, DixonLover87, MellikeMellow, Mathemagician93, dccheung08, mamachacha, Roxypockets1, Lily, moon romance, erica_schall, Bingereader727, SaturnnFoxx, MoreThanTheMoon, dawnoe, sailormyeon, frenchfan78, team rocket, Saiaino23, Lady Aya, Deebunny, vesedified, Ebony10, Almadine-Azaleea, casualsmut, mali86, endlesshorizons, Toni89, tryntee13, VIPNerd, Scars of the Moon, Final Saturn, Deadly Aura, MyStormWarning, mikanxnatsume1228, ff9moonie, forever-and-always-dancing, michiru61600, SupergirlMiraculous, Sarah, Mintaka14, lunarwolf1248, Serelena, Bookpirate, Melodylink, Dani1104, stylesera, lalelu87, Elena Ava, LiLuminaryThings, Krys7, crypticColumnist, vk111, alejastephanie, miraculouslladyj, jenna, Ruk, beets6669, questions, pokemon master, Bky, Thisfangirl, Bunnie, Thatycarter, Sieee, kera69love, DestinyManifested, TikiCheeky, Laura B, soireeposh, pikachu, chuchifrito, Irgendwer, missusguestlady, specialkai, Fanyeline, chocolatito, Flpirate305, mryann, phillynz, Selenita, Fany, Angffz, Rei0ki, CassieRaven, 16PinkRosesAngelEyes, SailorGuardian314, AS WELL AS ALL MY WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL GUEST REVIEWERS!
> 
> Thank you so much, it means so much to me you love this! Some people have reached out to me (here, as well as on Tumblr!) telling me this fic affected their real life approach to sexuality (or made them rethink some things society has taught them before!), and this is honestly the best compliment anyone could ever make me.
> 
> So yeah, thank you for the reviews, and comments. And if you read this now for the first time after this is finished, I would still love to hear from you - this is exactly what keeps me motivated to write in the future! Thank you so much for your love of this fic, and for letting me know of that love!
> 
> 💋 Mwah! Feel the Flora-Hug!
> 
> See you in a short epilogue!


	13. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here you go, as promised, a small epilogue to say goodbye to this fic! Thank you to my Superbeta Uglygreenjacket, and thank you to everyone who has supported me on the way! All those people in my reviews and my comments: I cannot thank you enough, and it was an absolute pleasure writing for you! Thank you so, so much!
> 
> Here you go!

* * *

The Unintentional Seduction of Chiba Mamoru  
Epilogue

* * *

"And this?"

"Uuhhhmmmmmm…"

"But they said—"

"It doesn't!"

"Huh." A grunt. Then a slightly changed position on shifting sheets. "This?"

"Hmm no, not really."

"How about here?"

"Eh, more to the—"

"Here?"

"No, more to—"

"What, _left_?!" he said, moving his fingers to the left as he propped his other arm up by the elbow, pillowing his chin on his hand by her face. "You never go—"

Her eyes flew open wide and shit _damn_ this was— "Ah, yes. Yes, there!"

"Huh."

Left it was.

His face was all gorgeous, wondrous amusement mixed with bewilderment; the twinkling fairy lights above her bed illuminating this man on top of her way too prettily from behind. And then he had the absolute gall to _change_ it again—

She grabbed his bicep. "Ah, no. Not like that."

"Lighter?" he asked, and changed it up immediately without waiting for affirmation.

She gave it anyway.

"Lighter." Her happy sigh was instantaneous, really.

"Good?" He smirked down at her, face so deliciously pretty, hair falling into his eyes.

"Hmmmmmmm," she hummed, because really, this was kind of bliss.

* * *

"What when I do thi—"

"Oh GOD, oh shiiiiiiit—"

"I guess that's a yes."

"Shiiiitfuuuu- Oh god, Usako don't—" he choked, "don't stoooo-ahhghh."

She giggled and it made it _worse_. (Or better, really.)

* * *

"How abou—"

She grabbed his hips perhaps way too hard, fingers cramping because oh wow, _what_?!

"YES!" she cried, wide-eyed. "Oh god, pleaasee, yesmmm-ah!"

But he flinched.

"Shhhhiiii— ouchouch _ouch_ ," he cried, and yanked himself out of her with a force to her utter and desperate dismay because fucking _god_ — "Uh, no, sorry. Not for me, ah."

* * *

"What about this?" he asked, breathless and pretty and hard and— uh, _no_.

"Uh, no, no, no," she cringed, pressed against him to get him off. "Just go back to before—"

But he came right back, determined. "Hm, how about this then?"

"Ughhhh," she growled into his shoulder. "Why can't you just go back to what you did bef—"

"I'm just trying to follow the manual!"

Really, her growl was absolute feral frustration. "Fuck the podcast, Mamo-chan!"

"Actually, I'm trying to fuck _you_ —" he smirked way too playfully as if he wasn't currently the most frustrating person in the _world_ because what he did before was _really good dammit she was almost there_.

"MAMO-CHAN!"

"... But it's not a representative trial if we don't follow the instructions!"

The look she sent him was perhaps a bit too wild.

"... Mamo-chaaaaaaa—"

"Ok, ok, ok!"

"—aaaanughhh, yes. Yes, that. THAT, yes."

* * *

With a grunt, he contorted her a bit much.

Nope, this one was definitely not on her happy list. This was doing nothing for her. "Mamo-chan, this is exhausting."

"You're a superhero, Usako."

She sighed. "Can you go back to being afraid of breaking me?"

He rolled his eyes, but flipped her over.

Nah, this one really wasn't all that good.

(It was made even worse when he bent her again and she cried out in abject horror when the movement caused her poor little Tux doll to tumble right off her bed. No, no. Nopedy-nope.)

* * *

"I don't think this is it. Are you sure?"

"Hm, maybe if we—"

He moved his leg and it lifted her butt, and he pouted in a way that was ridiculously cute. She had trouble not to snort.

"No," he said, lip jutted forward, hands grabbing her ass and moving her. "This is supposed to make you come super fast…"

She rolled her eyes, but lifted her butt obligingly nonetheless.

"You said this podcast also talked about bananas in guy's asses don't you think— oh WOW."

"See?"

* * *

"So," he grunted, out of breath and collapsing on his back, and reached for his drawer in the dresser by her bed. "Did we like this one?"

She gave him a look, but it turned into a grin. "I can't believe you're still doing this so neatly."

He shrugged, naked shoulders looking so pretty against her fluffy pillows, pen already in his notebook. "I'm thorough."

Her face was all eyebrows. "Oh, believe me, I KNOW."

He threw her a wilting look right back, those pretty lips so wonderfully red and puffy from all the things she'd done to them and it was throwing off the pretty glare on his face. "You usually don't complain about THAT."

But she stretched her legs out and flung herself on top of him, his eyes immediately leaving the notebook, pen raised and stilling when they instead flew to her dropping, jiggling breasts. He was such a guy.

She stroked her hands up his chest, parallel and flat, until she reached his middle, grabbed the notebook and the pen, and flung it off over her shoulder.

"Hey-mphh."

And then she attacked.

* * *

She couldn't keep the affectionate smile out of her insult, the loving lilt, but she couldn't help it anyway.

"You're such a nerd," she cooed.

He just smirked, rolled his hips, thrust in THAT angle.

"MmFuck," she grunted.

That obnoxiously attractive smirk simply grew a little wider on his lips. "We wouldn't know _that_ one without—"

She rolled her eyes. This man, sometimes. To think she was ever jealous of wherever he learned this shit from. "I swear to god if you-ughh oh gawwwd."

Shit-eating. That smirk was shit-eating.

"Mmmdidn't say it was a bad thingoHmm."

* * *

Who would have ever thought she would ever have this much fun learning… _anything_ , really?! But now that they were learning this stuff so openly together?

She was having fun. She was having a whole lot of fun. It was sickening, really.

But he was very, very right. Their desires were an endless well, there was so much left to learn, so much left to explore and compare and find out about her boyfriend's (!) (eek?! YAY?!) body and her own, and some of it honestly so very surprising.

Like when he'd for the first time and completely mindlessly gotten to her via one of his preferred modes of transportation - via rooftop and magic tuxedo - and slipped into her window without a second thought.

How he hadn't guessed _that_ kink she would never know. But he'd been so absolutely surprised.

And she'd stared at him so wide-eyed, flush disappearing down into her thin, thin tank top, and then she'd started to beg him to fuck her into her mattress still transformed and well... He had.

It really shouldn't have come as such a surprise to him that sex between Tuxedo Mask and Usagi was something they both... had enjoyed. It was the original crush after all. And had, after that night, enjoyed quite a bit more often, weird as it perhaps was. But hey. It really fulfilled a fucking surprising hoard of apparently mutual fantasies. And sometimes, regardless of whether he was currently inside of her or not, she made him detransform and transform and detransform at seemingly random and he groaned so pitifully and she got so WET and she _knew_ he knew she was shamelessly making him act out one of those dreams of hers. Or kind of all of them.

(Also, well, that flutter on your skin during a transformation? Apparently, it was something that was very... stimulating to her while he was inside of her. Who'd have found out _that_ , if they hadn't tried it a lot? She was getting on board with being thorough – and they'd also learned that this only worked when he transformed naked, or at least with his dick already out so this transition back to no civilian clothes would not be... not completely ouch.)

And after that kink was out of their system and they tried it out the other way around... and well, Mamoru did like Sailor Moon after all in a very carnal way.

Also, those stupid fukus were really hard to move out of the way. He _did_ like to try, though. But Tuxedo Mask had an easier time accomplishing that than Mamoru did and _really_ , who was she to complain?

Really, this was all kind of hundreds times better than she'd ever have imagined, because beneath that tux was _Mamoru_ and… and… Mamoru was kind of perfect, wasn't he? Because he was.

And because he was so perfect, when she got home from work that day, he was already sitting on her bed like he belonged there and nowhere else (and he _did_ ). And he looked so good: fairy lights switched on, bare feet crossed at the legs and peeking out from those pretty, pretty, black skinny jeans, flipping through a book, Coco Curry take-away boxes on a tray beside him along with her shiny new red-and-black Tuxedo Mask themed chopsticks he'd bought her last week.

(Really, he got way too much delight out of buying her _all_ the Tux merch there was.)

It would have all been perfect too, once she crawled into her bed and against his side under his already so conveniently lifted arm for her (without even looking away from his book, really, he was getting too used to this), had he not spoken such blasphemous words.

"Senshi meeting at Hikawa at 9," he mumbled, turning a page.

She groaned into his armpit and he chuckled and slid his Sailor Moon bookmark in place before snapping it shut (yes, she bought him shit too now in retaliation).

"What if I wanted to stay in with you instead?" she asked in her cute-sy voice and snuggled closer.

He looked down at her with a small smile, and damn did she love his reading glasses.

"We don't have to leave for another two hours," he said, and ran his hand through one streamer of her hair.

She pouted. "Hmmm, but that's no good."

She only let him go because he was reaching for the tray of food, and opened up the styrofoam.

Perfect man who _fed_ her.

"Luna said it's a new lead on the Princess," he said, tray now on his legs, and pushed his fingers under the flaps of the second box.

This one was all cheesy, cheesy, cheese curry. Hers. Her insides curled in _yum_.

"Bah," Usagi huffed anyway. "There's 'new leads' all the time and we never find her. Let's skip, please?"

He quirked a smile through his stern look, and stirred the rice – because she always made such a mess on the bed and so now he had to do it, (because yes, he was fucking perfect.) "Usako…"

Full pout on. "I had a hard day and I want to cuddle," and with that, she lifted his shirt and nibbled on him.

Good thing he had such good superhero reflexes and never dropped precious food even under attack.

He laughed. "You don't want to cuddle, Usako."

"What if I do?"

He raised that unfairly pretty eyebrow and held her cheesy food out for her.

She took it and started shoveling.

"What can I do so I can have sex with you instead of going to boring meetings?" she asked with her mouth full like the sexy, seductive beast she was.

"You could go to a supermarket and announce it loudly," he said all smirkiest of smirks like the jerk he fucking was.

She glared. "I can't believe Rei told you that." She stabbed her food. "It wasn't even _that_ bad. You were teasing me with all that not-kissing, and I wanted to have sex. Which I still do, and you could have gotten the memo, by now."

He shrugged, grin turning even more obnoxious. "I believe the exact term I was told you used was 'ramming'."

She pursed her lips and shoved her mouth full.

"We could go for milkshakes on the way?" she begged instead, mouth full once more.

He looked much more dainty and pretty. Eating like a prissy nerd even with pink Sailor Moon chopsticks from a styrofoam bowl.

"If you want?"

She cringed. "Motoki's gonna think I'm a floozy till the rest of time, won't he?"

"Yup." He popped his p with a toothy grin.

Usagi sighed into her bowl.

"Well," he shrugged. "It was your decision to tell him it was Tuxedo Mask you wanted to confess to originally."

Not her brightest moment to say that. In her defence, it HAD cleared everything up for the girls when she explained that Mamoru was Tuxedo Mask. She forgot she couldn't get to step two of the admittedly _very good story_ with Motoki. Now he thought Mamoru's dick had made her fall out of love with a superhero.

( _Well_ …)

"I did confess to Tuxedo Mask," she pouted into her curry.

"Hmmm," he hummed as if it was a purr, and leaned close. "Confess to him again?"

She rolled her eyes, pushed at his shoulder, and he kept grinning, even when he attempted to _steal her food_ to move it out of the way.

Well, he couldn't _always_ be perfect, could he?

* * *

He stood at the stovetop with his little espresso maker (that lived in her kitchen because it _belonged_ there) in a wrinkled T-shirt, droopy pajama bottoms that were getting thin from wear, and bed-head.

Minako crossed her arms when she appeared in the doorway dressed to the nines, glimmering lipstick and dramatic sunglasses that covered the giant purple bags under her eyes.

Early morning shoots really made her testy.

"You guys missed the meeting last night," she glared.

"We did," he said, lifted the espresso maker, poured its contents into a Totoro mug, and brought it over to his breakfast.

Minako rolled her eyes at him. "You know, if I'd put two and two together and realized this meant I'd have to see you first thing in the morning for the rest of my life, I wouldn't have pushed her to do this."

He grinned, big and fat, and shrugged at her as he lifted his spoon of actually healthy fruity nutty cereal that he'd bought at the foreign delicatessen store in hopes of bribing Usagi into giving up the atrocious unicorns and now no one ate it but him in this house.

Minako scribbled something on the fridge.

"For the rest of your life?" he quipped around his spoon. "You do realize at one point Usako and I are going to move in together and then you—"

She whirled around with a pointed finger. "Not gonna happen!" she growled, then kissed the fridge— or the paper tacked to it, leaving behind a big fat lipstick mark.

He grinned wider.

"She's living with me, stop talking or I revoke your visitation rights!" She hollered over her shoulder on her way out. "And speak to Luna once Usagi gets up, we really do have a good lead!"

He chuckled around his spoon, content.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, here it is! One more or less open-ended epilogue as tiny as the prologue was, leaving you with the last point I wanted to make in a fic about the teaching sex and seduction trope: that when it comes to sex, the only way to learn together is to actually learn together, and to try out what works for you over and over again! There are no magic moves ultimately, in the end you have to try stuff out; it's only in what ends up fitting to the people and how open you learn to be together in communicating what works and what doesn't. So yeah guys, be happy and safe and have some consensual and healthy and unapologetic pleasure and try something new you maybe haven't tried before (with yourself, or with someone you want and who wants you back!) cause you all deserve it! Mwah! It was a blast writing this for you!
> 
> On a slightly related note: Sex Education Season 2 came out two weeks ago-ish on Netflix. I binged it in a few nights and just got finished yesterday and damnnnn do I love this show. So, ya know, if you like sex ed in your entertainment, and some Brits talking pleasure, and one nerdy inexperienced boy researching the shit out of sex and making some Very Bad Decisions, I can recommend that show lol.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you liked this story, and for those of you who've started this after it was done writing, I hope you will like it, too, whenever you will read it, and I would love to hear what you think of it! I promise it motivates me to write something new!
> 
> Mwah!


End file.
